by Joshua Guess
The Saint
A Carter Ash Novel
Joshua Guess
©2016 Joshua Guess
This book is dedicated to James Cook
Fellow author, friend, and the first person I pitched The Saint to.
You told me to write it, brother, and here he is.
1
Being a criminal isn’t the hard part. Staying free is.
Take the three men sitting together in the booth of the closed restaurant on the outer edge of Louisville’s business district. It’s a nice place. Not the most expensive, certainly not black tie, but nice. The food is reliably delicious, the service second to none, and the booths have high backs with baffles between them. Sound does not carry well outside those closed spaces.
A reasonable amount of privacy and the old saw about location, location, location were the primary factors in why Tre Fratelli evolved from a modest pizza joint into the foremost lunch destination among the movers and shakers working in the 30th largest city in America.
That, and I busted ass to make sure those people checked the place out. Not all crime involves stickups in back alleys. Subtlety can be much more effective than a gun.
The restaurant was closed, unusual for a weekday afternoon, but that was the way of these things. The three men—brothers, as the restaurant’s name implied—made the executive decision to eat the cost. Though I wasn’t in the main room, I saw them. Heard them. They were black and white images on the tablet in front of me, their tinny voices singing through the wireless earpiece synced to it.
You close down restaurants for a lot of reasons. Special events, a death in the family, and in this case the possibility you might have to murder the guy coming to meet you.
I should point out here that the owners, the Franklin brothers, were not any kind of Italian. They weren’t part of any mafia, not that Kentucky was known for its excess of refugees from Mario Puzo novels. In fact, the only criminal organization they were connected with was the one I worked for.
I listened to them talk for a while. It was exactly what I expected.
“It’s a bad idea,” Adam Franklin, the oldest brother, said to the twins. He looked nervous. “We knew what we were getting into letting Russey’s people set up shop here. You don’t go into business with people like that and expect to get out. We still have eighteen months left on our agreement. I say we grit our teeth, save money for the buyout, and make it ’til then.”
Oh, Adam. If only you hadn’t gone into business with your idiot brothers. Voices of reason were so rare in my line of work.
Adam wore his usual attire for a day running the shop, a pair of sturdy black slacks, scuffed black shoes, and a white polo shirt with the Tre Fratelli logo embroidered over the left breast. His pair of younger twin brothers, however, liked to live large and it showed in their preference for clothes. I smiled.
“Fuck that,” said Taylor Franklin. “I say we break away. Look at how much money we make now. Think about what we’d be pulling in if we didn’t pay their cut!” Julian, his twin, was characteristically silent, but nodded along in agreement.
Adam raised his hands in frustration, as if beseeching the sky for answers. “We only make that much because they helped us do it, Taylor. We brought in a third of the receipts before Russey came along. Is it worth going to war to take home an extra few grand a month each? Is it worth our lives?”
To my surprise, it was Julian who answered with a derisive sneer on his face. “You think they want that kind of attention? Russey will grumble about it, but he won’t do shit to us.”
“No?” Adam asked, loading up for a sucker punch. “Then why did they send the Saint?”
Ah. That was my cue.
Let me tell you something about making an entrance: it’s an effective and practical form of psychology. In the same way communication between two people is more than just words, encompassing body language and attitude, how you enter a scene has lots of subconscious implications. I mean, look at professional wrestlers. Who awes you more, the guy walking to the ring, or the guy zipping down a steel cable from the rafters with fireworks lighting him up from every angle?
I unfolded myself from the steel cabinet I was crouched in, tapped the off button on my earwig, and straightened my suit jacket after buttoning it. That’s the thing about mysterious strangers appearing out of nowhere in the movies that directors don’t show; it takes a lot of prep work. In my case, bribing the deeply underpaid dishwasher to clear out that shelf before slipping me in the back door after the rest of the staff left.
I’d installed the spy cam months before. I liked to keep an eye on the boss’s investments.
I slipped the tablet into a pocket and pushed through the kitchen door, stepping into the dining room. As expected, the Franklin brothers were caught utterly off guard. They thought I’d be knocking on the front door, a penitent begging for entrance, rather than strolling in from the back with its barred and bolted security door like I owned the damn place.
As a matter of fact, I did not own the place. Just the three men who did.
“Gentlemen,” I said, stopping five feet from their booth and giving each of them a nod. “I’m Carter Ash. I believe we have an appointment.”
I hadn’t laid a finger on them, but from the three expressions in front of me you would have thought I had kicked them in the balls. I waited a few seconds for someone else to speak, but once the brothers regained their composure their faces went hard and tight. I kept my own face carefully neutral, with maybe a hint of whimsical humor tugging at the corner of my mouth.
Only show fear when it gains you something. Oh, I was afraid. Make no mistake about that. Only idiots aren’t afraid of men who feel trapped. People are animals, and I don’t mean that in some film noir, fatalistic way. We’re mammals with highly evolved brains and excellent manual dexterity, but we’re still beholden to the same instincts as any other beast. When threatened, we become afraid. Or should.
“I couldn’t help overhearing,” I said pleasantly. “You’re considering what lengths you might need to go to in order to break our deal. Killing me was discussed.” My words lacked heat or judgment. I had a healthy concern they’d actually try it, of course, because threats to my life were a perpetual occupational hazard, but I didn’t blame them for it. It takes a lot for things in my world to get personal. If I let anger take over every time someone tried to kill me, much less talk about it, I’d be a stew of unexpressed rage or have a body count rivaling a John Woo movie.
Julian, usually the quiet brother, crossed his arms. “Then you understand how serious this is to us. There’s no way you’re going to let us out of our contract when it’s up, money or not.”
I shook my head. “You’re wrong, and you know it. You agreed to work with us because you know our reputation. We keep our deals no matter what. We don’t turn on partners. Our obligations are always honored. You’re just using that as an excuse to break our agreement before you have to buy us out of it. And son? You’re not ready for what that move would mean.”
Calling him son was more than a small stretch. Julian and his brother were thirty, and I was just a few years older. It was Taylor who looked at me sharply, though Adam went pale at the words and clenched his teeth.
Taylor’s voice was calm, almost dismissive. “I think we are, Mr. Ash. Your boss can’t afford a public fight. You rely on keeping off the radar. We may not have your resources, but we can make this very public.”
I nodded along as I listened. “You’re right. We don’t want to start a war. No one wants to start shooting. But I’m right, too. You aren’t ready step up. It’s pretty obvious by those suits you wear.”
Adam, silent since I entered the room,
looked at me with naked disbelief on his face and barked a laugh. “Our suits?”
“Their suits,” I said, pointing. “Tailored. Expensive. You’re running an illegal listening post and we’ve worked very hard to make this place boom. Rather than appearing as three hardworking men who’ve had recent success, you’re showing off the extra money you shouldn’t have because to the outside world you should look like you’re working your ass off and reinvesting profits. This is a mid-class restaurant that stays busy, and by wearing expensive suits you’re drawing attention.”
I knew I’d struck a sore nerve between them. This wasn’t a wild shot, though it was easy enough to figure out from the tension between them and the way Adam unconsciously frowned at the suits. I’d been spying on them for a while now, and knew enough to push buttons all day long if needed.
Julian opened his mouth to say something, but I raised a hand. “No. You’re going to listen.”
The words were calm, my tone silky, but it was a thin and smooth veneer hiding a sharp blade beneath. They’d agreed to work with me and my boss, Mr. Russey, because of his reputation. But they fell silent because of mine.
“See, the suit I’m wearing is off the rack. It’s comfortable. I can run in it. Fight in it if I need to. It’s not cheap, but it’s cheap enough not to raise eyebrows. When I say you aren’t ready to deal with the consequences, I mean it. Because it’s as obvious to me as the clothes you wear.”
I let the careful mask fall away. I wasn’t angry. Anger only forces an equal response. My voice and face went utterly cold. “You’re right that we don’t want a scene. We don’t want anything that could lead to an investigations into our business. Which is why no one would find you. You’d be taken quietly, and I’d dispose of your bodies myself. Most of the time people get caught because they’re lazy about that. I’m not. I’ll wear my store-bought suit while I feed your parts into an industrial grinder. I’ll still be wearing it when I hose it down with bleach afterward to clean away the evidence. Once I’ve changed out of it and burned it, I’ll pour the slurry that used to be you into the river and sleep like a baby.”
There is a moment when all the right brain chemistry comes together to make a person ready to kill. I saw it click over in all three of the Franklin brothers. They knew who I was. They knew I wasn’t fucking around.
They also know why people call me the Saint.
“It doesn’t have to go that way,” I said. “My men outside don’t have to put you in a windowless van. I can turn off the cell jammer keeping you from calling for help. You can walk out of here the way you walked in, keep to the deal, and buy us out early if you want.”
The relief was palpable. When some drunk guy in a bar says he’ll kill you, you get mad and brush it off. When you’re dealing with criminals with more to lose than you’ll ever own, the consequences of a bad choice are much higher.
“What do you say, fellas?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
The twins mumbled assent, the best response I could have reasonably expected. Adam, who looked the most relieved by a country mile, actually stood and shook my hand.
I wondered if he’d ever tell the twins he was the one who put me onto them. I certainly wouldn’t. Adam was a smart guy. He knew when a good thing was in front of him. Rocking the boat wasn’t normally his style, but no amount of reason from his mouth could convince his younger brothers to shut up and get with the program. I respected the balls—and brains—it took to call me in and put the fear of God into them.
I’d also never tell Adam that every word was sincere. I’d have left him without siblings if it came down to it.
“Thank you,” he said as he pumped my hand, betraying no sign of our complicity. “We’ll have the buyout ready.”
I shrugged. “I think I might be able to convince Mr. Russey to bump his incentive for the full contract length. Maybe not. It’ll take some thought.” I let go of his hand and stared flatly at the twins. “You guys know this was your one free pass, right?”
This was also part of my reputation. I was the bad guy who gave a second chance—but not a third. Never a third.
It wasn’t anything I intended. In the early days our position wasn’t nearly as secure, so I spent a lot of time negotiating and people started calling me the Saint because I was willing to talk rather than pull a trigger. The few times people abused that grace, everyone knew the results. They weren’t pretty.
But, hell, I wasn’t going to ignore a useful tool like that. The less I had to argue with people, the easier my job was. I was getting used to the scene in front of me.
Julian and Taylor both nodded, the sweat on their faces surely staining their pretty suits in places I couldn’t see. “Yes, sir,” they said, not quite in unison.
I gave them a wintry smile that came nowhere close to my eyes. “Good to hear.”
2
I left the restaurant through the front door and with one less worry on my mind. Being the guy in charge of operations on the ground comes with a high volume of them on a daily basis, but the Franklin brothers could safely be crossed off the list. I hadn’t relied solely on my instincts, though. No one bats a thousand when it comes to predicting outcomes.
Walking toward the parking garage where I left my car, I called Amanda Bealer, one of my lieutenants. As usual, she didn’t bother picking up with a greeting.
“How’d it go?” she asked.
I smiled. “Everyone walked away happy.”
The snorting grunt that came over the line was flattened by the speaker. “You mean everyone walked away in one piece.”
“Amanda,” I said, the barest note of caution in my voice. Rule one was to never even approach speaking about our business via electronic means. This was brushing up against it.
“Yeah, sorry, boss,” she said without sounding the least bit remorseful. “Standard observation? Two weeks?”
Though I knew she would ask, I took a second to think about it. “No. Ongoing. I don’t think they’ll try to pick a fight, but if they’re even considering it I want to be able to throw water on the situation before it has a chance to start burning.”
Amanda sighed. “You’re going to have to let me hire some new people, Carter. There are only four of us here. The workload never gets smaller.”
“You always say that,” I replied.
“It’s always true. We can’t keep up this up without help. We’re going to start missing things.”
Though she couldn’t see it, I nodded. “Okay. I’ll talk to the boss about it. Start putting together some possible hires and I’ll look into them.”
“Really?” she asked, the excitement almost overwhelming the phone’s speaker. “You think he’ll say yes?”
“It’s likely,” I said, and we both knew Russey would happily agree. “I’ll call you later.”
Russey would agree because everyone knew the truth about our organization, which was that I ran it. That’s not a knock on the boss; we followed his orders. What made the whole thing work was that Russey was absolutely disinterested in the things so many leaders in organized crime held close to their hearts. He didn’t care about reputation in any way other than what made him money. He didn’t feel the need to be feared. He was smart enough to know he didn’t have anything like my level of familiarity with what we’d built together, or my capacity to run it.
He was okay with that. It’s why he recruited me in the first place. Good leaders can manage everything on their own and do well. Great leaders humbly recognize their faults and push their pride to one side and bring in people to shore up those cracks.
Tom Russey was a great leader, and if the stable function of our business meant taking a small profit loss to hire a new person, he’d be all for it if I was the one asking.
A familiar face leaned next to the entrance of the parking structure. He was a few inches over six feet, ten years my senior, and was tough as coffin nails.
“What’s the word?” asked Javier Acosta, another of my lieutena
nts.
I shrugged. “We’re solid for now. Take the boys out to lunch and have the rest of the day off. I’ll call if anything comes up.”
Javier nodded. “You’ll be heading to Russey’s?”
“Not directly,” I said. “Need to swing home first. Why, you want me to pass him a love note or something?”
The older man grinned, the sort of smile that could lead to a dirty joke or a cut throat. “No, I just wondered if you’d talk to him about the kid. It’s getting out of hand.”
Suppressing the urge to roll my eyes, I agreed. “Yeah, though I don’t think it’ll do much good. You know how he is about Robby. Typical dad.”
As I drove home, I thought of ways I could once more approach my boss about the increasingly hard time we had keeping his son safe. Robby didn’t know exactly what the rest of us were up to from day to day, but at eighteen the kid was far from dewy-eyed innocence about the armed men at his dad’s beck and call. Years of exposure seemed to have given him the idea that he was untouchable, which led to Javier and the guys he was in charge of stopping a lot of fights and paying out a lot of damages.
Not that I had high hopes. Russey was a smart guy, but like most fathers he was curiously blind and stupid about his kids.
I should know. I used to be a dad.
I have two apartments. One of them is the address of record for every aspect of my life. It looks lived-in. It’s slightly messy. If you walked into if off the street, exactly nothing would make you think it’s almost always empty. The other one is where I live, and no one knew it but me.
I’ve considered how paranoid that looks, but I work on probabilities. The chance that one of the crooks who work for me will turn out to be a bad seed or take a payout from a competitor is nontrivial. It’s one of many occupational hazards, so I had a secret place where I did my actual living.
