by Derek Haas
“This,” said Vespucci in a rough growl, “is a test.”
“A what?” said Cox, like he didn’t hear the man correctly.
“A test for the boy you liked knocking around so much, tough guy.”
Cox’s eyes settled on the pistol resting on the desk and he started backpedaling, his feet moving almost involuntarily. But the two men closed on him, and held him firmly by the elbows so he could no longer move.
“Hey, wait, what’s this . . . ? What’s this all about? He . . . he killed my wife. Did he tell you that?” His voice sounded shrill.
Hap spat on the ground. “He told me everything I needed to know.“
I still couldn’t find my voice . . . this clash with my past jarring me as though I’d been shell-shocked. Here was Mr. Cox, the man who had caused an enormous abyss in my childhood, standing before me. The only item positioned between us was a pistol.
Vespucci spoke. “In ten seconds, my men and I are going to leave this place and lock the door behind us. On that desk is a pistol. Somewhere in this room are the bullets that can be fired from that pistol. I will open the doors again tomorrow morning and only one of you will come out. If there are two of you standing here when I open the door, I’ll cut you both down. Only one walks out tomorrow morning.”
I looked at Mr. Cox’s face with what must have been a feral snarl and I could almost feel him reeling back, looking for an escape route.
“You must be joking. I can’t . . .” he started to protest, but every man in the room besides us turned on their heels and headed for the exits, leaving the sentence to die in the air, unfinished. We both stood silently, as two sets of doors swung shut and were bolted behind us. Neither of us flinched, nor twitched a muscle; we just stared at each other.
Then as the weight of the silence threatened to crush us, he leaped for the gun. My legs took over, and I tackled him before his hand could grip the weapon. We smashed into the desk, overturning it, and the gun skittered across the floor.
His hands went for my face, trying to claw my eyes as we both fought for leverage. He was still bigger than me, and his legs straddled mine, so I couldn’t gain my balance, while his hands continued to scratch at my face. The only thing I could do was ball my hands into fists and start driving my knuckles into his rib cage, his kidneys, one, two, three times, again and again. He may have had a weight advantage, but I had learned a great deal about dirty fighting in the exercise yard at Waxham. I must have caught him under a rib, because suddenly he gasped for breath and fell over sideways.
I sprang up, my eyes a bit blurry from the pressure, and stumbled toward the gun. He caught his breath and stood to follow, just as I scooped up the weapon.
As I held it up, he sneered, “Lot of good that will do you without the—” But before he could finish that thought, I pistol-whipped him across the face, smashing him so hard his mouth filled with blood and he fell to the floor in a heap. He started to rise, so I smashed him again, harder, putting all my weight behind it, and this time he stayed down. Faint whimpers came from his throat and quickly died in the large, hollow room.
Fuck the bullets. I headed for an old rusty sewing machine that looked like it hadn’t been used in decades. It must have weighed over fifty pounds, but it seemed light as a feather as I hoisted it onto my shoulder and marched back toward the whimpering heap on the floor.
He looked up as I stood over him, gore splashed all over his lips, his gums, his teeth. “Wha-what are you doing this for?” he sobbed.
“For Pooley,” I said, and smashed the sewing machine down on top of his skull.
I sit in my hotel room in Philadelphia watching Abe Mann outline his vision for America on television. This is how he will sit, I imagine, a few weeks from now, watching himself say the same things by rote, over and over. How he’s for working families, and lower taxes, and cutting tax breaks for the rich. How he’s for a woman’s right to choose and a stronger military and jobs staying home instead of going overseas. The same fast-food dish served up stale by politicians every few years.
His voice is throaty; it arrives from deep down in his lungs. It is one of the reasons he has been so successful in politics: he is well-practiced in how he speaks, even if he doesn’t believe what he is saying. And he has a new hand gesture: an open palm, the fingers splayed, shaking at an angle as he punctuates the key words in his speech. It is a variation on the thumb-point, or the crooked index finger. It gives him a certain authority, like an old Southern preacher at the pulpit. I find myself making the same gesture with my hand, watching him without listening, the way he does while he speaks.
The phone rings, and it is Pooley on the other end when I answer.
“What did you find?”
“Very little, so far. Archibald Grant has disappeared; no one has seen him in days.”
“Then whoever hired me has tossed his middleman.”
“Looks that way.”
My mind is racing. “What next, then?”
Pooley blew out a long breath. “I’m going to dig some more, see if I can’t find a trail from Grant to someone else.”
“You sure you want to do that?”
“Hey . . . why should you be the only one who gets to climb out from behind a desk?”
I smile. “You be careful.”
“You got it.”
I am on the road again, back in my element, the present. I am heading to Ohio, what they call a battleground state, where Abe Mann will spend an unprecedented three days on his tour . . . Cleveland, then Dayton, then Cincinnati. Electoral votes in this state have swung an election in the past, and glad-handing is necessary and expected. I try to imagine what Abe Mann will be feeling at this point in the campaign. Fatigue? Irritation? Or will he feel renewed, as I do now? Back in the present. Yesterday behind me.
In Cleveland, I eat lunch at a restaurant called Augustine’s. It is upscale but strives to be better than it is, like a scarred woman who puts on too much rouge to cover her blemishes. The food is bland and tasteless. A young couple at a table next to me is talking about the upcoming election, and without turning my head I can hear every word they say. Or rather I can hear every word she says, since she is dominating the conversation.
“I consider myself socially liberal but economically conservative. Winston Churchill once said, ‘If you’re young and a conservative, you have no heart. But if you’re old and a democrat, you have no money.’ ” The man across from her chuckles. “But I’m being serious here. I feel like we pay way too much in taxes, and for what? More Washington waste?”
“So you’re voting Republican?” the man asks.
“No, I’m still undecided. I want to hear what the candidates have to say at their conventions and then . . .”
Her voice continues on and on, like a comfortable hum, and it strikes me that this woman is the same age Jake would be. Now, I know I shouldn’t turn my head, I know I definitely should not make eye contact, but there is something in her voice that washes over me like warm water. I stick out my index finger and clumsily knock my fork off the table, toward the woman’s voice. We both reach for it at the same time, and for a full second, we look into each other’s faces. I don’t know what she finds in mine, but in hers I see what might have been.
CHAPTER 5
MY first paying job for Vespucci was to kill a woman. He was waiting in my apartment on a Sunday afternoon, after I had spent the day walking around the Harbor with Jake. His face was grave, serious.
“Do you know what a fence is, Columbus?” He had been calling me “Columbus” since the door swung open at the abandoned Columbus Textile warehouse the morning after I had brained Mr. Cox.
“No, sir. Not any other way than what I think it is.”
“I am a fence. A fence is a middleman. A go-between. Do you understand?”
I looked at him with what I am sure was a blank expression.
“I am hired by certain people for the purpose of assassination. They give me a target’s name. It is my job
as the fence to find out as much information about the mark as I can. Then I, in turn, assign the job to one of my professionals. The professional never meets the client. That is my job. Do you understand?”
“I think so.”
“Good, Columbus. You are . . . a quick learner.”
“And I’m your professional?”
He chortled a little. “Not yet, no. You are . . . how should I say . . . an understudy, like in the theater. You will learn your role and be ready to fill a position as necessary. You will be paid only if you kill a mark. And once you’re paid,” he said, a broad smile appearing across his face, “well, then, I suppose you are a professional.”
I moved to the kitchen and took down a box of crackers from a shelf. But I only fidgeted with the box, turning it over and over in my hands like a pig on a spit.
“What if I’m not interested in being one of your professionals?’
He cleared his throat, covering his mouth with his fist, and the smile left his face. “God gave you free will. I do not presume to take that away from you. However, I have looked into your eyes, Columbus. I have seen the orphan childhood; I have felt your hands turn into fists. You are a killer. A . . . how is it . . . a natural killer. The warehouse didn’t make you a killer. You were one before you ever lifted that sewing machine above your head. I only helped show you what you are.”
I set the box of crackers down on the counter in front of me. There was a ringing in my ears, and I’m not sure if it was fear, or the fact I had heard the sound of truth delivered by this dark Italian in my kitchen.
“Hap saw something in you . . . saw this quality. He saw it . . . instinctively. He thought you could do this job after one conversation with you.”
“He works for you, then?”
“I have many people who work for me.” He studied me for a moment, appraising me. “I have a feeling. I have a feeling I would have found you anyway. There is a level to . . . how do you say . . . to fate? Yes? It causes paths to cross in ways we cannot understand.” He stopped, waving his hand, like he had stumbled down a dark road and now wanted to reverse direction. He handed me a manila envelope, the kind you might find in any office storage closet. A ten-by-thirteen plain manila envelope, heavy and rigid. “Read this,” he said, “then we’ll talk. Tomorrow, perhaps.”
With that, he put on his hat and shuffled toward the door.
I spent hours poring over the contents of that envelope, exhilarated, like a person entrusted with a singular and dangerous confidence. The first sheet held a name printed in big black letters across the top: MICHAEL FOLIO. There was an address: 1022 South Holt Ave., and a description: six-two, 200 pounds, medium build, sandy hair, wire-frame glasses, no tattoos, no birthmarks. And there was more: “Michael has a facial tic that causes his upper lip to curl at the right corner. He has no relatives except a sister who lives in British Columbia, Carol Dougherty. She is married to Frank Dougherty, a plumber, and has two kids, Shawn, ten, and Carla, eight. They have not corresponded with Michael in over seven years.”
The next page gave a detailed description of Michael’s office: “He is a litigator in the law firm Douglas and Thackery. His office is on the fifth floor of a five-story office complex known as The Meadows. The firm has 25 employees. They are: Carol Santree, receptionist. . . .” This type of thing. The third page provided a blueprint of the office with a seating chart as to where exactly each employee sat. The fourth page gave a chronological list of precisely where Michael had been over the last thirty days: “8 a.m., target leaves house, moving West on Holt. He stops at Starbucks on corner of Holt and Landover. 8:15 a.m., leaves Starbucks continues west on Holt, follows until he reaches Highway 765, then turns north.”
This description continued for the next thirty pages or so. It began to dawn on me the time and energy and man-hours it took to compile the pages I held in my hands. Why would I need to know that working in his office was a junior partner named Sam Goodwin? That Michael frequently ate his lunch alone at The Olive Garden? That the route he took to get to the cleaners involved a shortcut on Romero Street? But the answer was obvious . . . so I, as the assassin assigned the task of killing Michael Folio, would best be able to plan my attack and my escape. Since I know that when he finishes his meal at The Olive Garden, eighty-seven percent of the time he uses the bathroom on his way out the door, I could plan to wait and ambush him in the men’s room stall. Since I know that he hasn’t spoken to his niece and nephew in seven years, I could pretend to be a friend of theirs and “bump” into him next to the dry cleaners. Gain his trust and get invited into his home. The possibilities were endless, but only because I had this file Vespucci had meticulously labored over.
That’s when the addiction began. I studied those pages as though I was reading scripture, each line read and read and read again until Michael Folio’s life was committed to memory. I found myself thinking of little else, waiting for the phone to ring.
WE were eating lunch when I saw him. Jake had ordered breadsticks and salad and was picking away through her meal, while I was waiting on the pasta I had ordered.
“I’d like you to come home with me for the holidays,” she said, looking at me through the tops of her eyes.
“I thought you weren’t interested in seeing your fa mily.”
“I didn’t think I was. And I don’t know why, but they are my family and for some inexplicable reason I feel compelled to see them over the holidays. Maybe there’s something to be said for nature and nurture and all that sociological bullshit we studied my freshman year. If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to . . . I’d understand.”
“Why wouldn’t I want to go?”
She smiled. “I don’t know. I just assumed you wouldn’t want to . . .”
“You still don’t have me figured out, do you?” I said.
“Every time I think I do, you throw me a curveball.” She settled into her food again, and I looked at the door, and that’s when I saw him. Michael Folio. The man from the envelope. The man who was going to die as soon as Vespucci gave the word. He waited at the hostess stand, then held up one finger, and the hostess nodded and led him toward a booth halfway between the bathroom and the table where Jake and I sat. I had purposely picked a table so I could sit with my back to the wall. That way, I would have a view of the entire restaurant.
Jake started talking again, but I didn’t hear what she was saying because a buzzing nested in my ear as I watched Michael Folio—not just a picture on top of a sheet of paper but a living and breathing human being. He sat down and studied his menu.
Jake turned her head to see what had gotten my attention. She probably thought I was staring at a woman, but when she saw a man in a suit and tie, she said, “You know him?”
I shook my head. “What?”
“That man . . . you looked at him like you knew him.”
“Did I?” I laughed. “I blanked out wondering where the hell my food was.”
That did the trick. She went back to talking about her family, and my food arrived, and I twirled the noodles around my fork and tried to concentrate, but every few seconds my eyes drifted to the breathing dead-man seated alone in the middle of the restaurant.
Finally, I excused myself and walked toward the bathroom. I had to pass by his booth on the way, and I glanced down at him as I went, but he didn’t notice. He was reading a copy of Sports Illustrated, engrossed in an article.
Inside the bathroom, I stared at myself in the mirror, trying to get my body to stop shaking. This was a new sensation; I felt electric, like a brewing storm. I splashed some water on my face, was rubbing my eyes, when the door to the bathroom opened.
I half-expected to see Michael Folio come through the door; in fact, I had planned my trip to the bathroom to coincide with the waitress bringing him his bill. But instead of Folio, it was Vespucci’s large figure who shuffled through the door. His eyes glowered at me, like they wanted to pick me up and throw me across the room.
“What’r
e you doing?” he spat in a hushed tone.
“Nothing. I—”
“You were to do nothing until I gave you the command. What you are doing here is not nothing!”
“I’m doing my homework, in case you called.”
“Homework? Don’t bullshit me.”
“That’s all I was doing.”
“Who’s the girl?”
“What? She’s just a girl I know.”
“You like her?”
“She’s just a girl, Mr. Vespucci.”
“We’ll talk about this later. Pay your bill and go home.”
I knew this was not open for discussion. I nodded, shimmied past him, and headed back to the restaurant. As I passed Folio’s booth, I noticed he was gone. Jake looked at me concerned as I approached our table.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m not feeling well.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Do you think it was the pasta?”
“I don’t know. We just need to go.”
She stood up, sympathy on her face. “You just head to the car. I’ll get the check.”
She drove me home while I pretended to feel queasy. It wasn’t difficult, since I was thinking about how upset Vespucci had been, how his eyes had flashed when he entered the bathroom. She dropped me off and I protested against her coming in with me . . . saying I needed to be alone and get this worked out. Reluctantly, she let me go, and I noticed it was several minutes before her car moved away from the curb.
VESPUCCI didn’t come that night, or the next day, or the second night. I talked to Jake a couple of times and told her it was nothing but a stomach flu, that I would be fine, that I just felt weak and begged off meeting up with her for a few days. She wanted to take care of me, and I think she was saddened that I refused her succor. I think this might have raised the first questions in her mind as to where our relationship was going.
I more or less had the radio on all day, just background noise to keep me company as I waited. Which is why at first I didn’t process the report about the litigator who had been shot while sitting at his desk on the fifth floor of the Meadows Office Complex in the northern part of the city. The reporter’s words were just a dull hum when the name “Michael Folio” broke through the clutter. I leapt up like I was on fire and raced to the radio, turning the volume up as loud as it would go. The reporter was talking about another D.C. sniper, right here in Boston. Police were speculating that the bullet must have come from a neighboring rooftop and had caught the litigator just above his right ear as he sat reading a briefing at his desk. His assistant had heard the sound of glass shattering and had rushed to his office, only to find him lying facedown on his desk in a pool of his own blood. There was no more news at this time.
