by Rob Ashman
Shit! Her mind went into overdrive. Mills must have contacted the local precinct to sequester the file.
How the hell did they get here so fast? Mills never did anything that fast. No one did anything that fast. The words crashed around in her head.
She dropped to the floor and rummaged her way through the documents, there was so much paper. She could hear them clearly now as they got closer. They were coming down the central aisle to her left.
Moran furiously turned over page after page.
None of it said Sheldon.
None of it said Vickers.
She could hear their footsteps. She stood up and squinted through the files again, the men were almost on her.
Moran slammed the file shut and rammed it inside her jacket. She straightened out the remaining folders on the shelf and walked to the opposite end of the row. As the men entered the one side, she disappeared out the other.
What the hell was she going to do now? If the police suspected foul play they would lock down the building and that was not good news.
She walked casually out of the hall dragging her case behind her. She crossed the atrium, past the elevators and into the opposite hall. There she found a corner between two shelves, dropped to the floor and pulled the file from under her coat.
She spread the paperwork around her and frantically sifted through it. After much sorting and cursing she found a page relating to Sheldon Chemicals, then another and another. Then the documents relating to Gerry Vickers came thick and fast. Soon she had a wad of papers set to one side. She opened her bag and stuffed them in.
Moran checked the coast was clear and headed for the elevators, taking care to keep her back to the camera located in the corner. She pressed the down arrow and waited, her heart rate returning to normal. Seconds later the doors opened with a metallic ding. She stepped inside and hit level two. The doors trundled together, and were nearly closed when a fat hand darted between them, holding them open. They slid apart, and the cop and grey-suited man got in.
‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ the cop said when he saw Moran.
She nodded and stared at the floor.
The grey-suited guy was trying to minimise his embarrassment, explaining away the absence of the file. He hit level one.
‘We’ll get to the bottom of it, officer. It occasionally happens that files get misplaced. People don’t always put them back in the correct location. We have a barcode system which identifies the file’s last location. The boys downstairs will be able to help.’
Moran was at the back of the elevator and the men stood in front of her facing away. She could see the cop’s face in profile. She recognised the look. He couldn’t care less. His first job of the day was to respond to a request from another police force two thousand miles away. He had to secure a file relating to a company he knew nothing about, relating to a case he knew nothing about. He was warm, dry and about to be given coffee to compensate for being made to wait. He wasn’t going to get too excited about a little admin mix-up. If this took all day, it was fine by him.
The elevator stopped at the second floor and the doors opened.
‘Excuse me,’ Moran said in a tiny voice. The two guys parted and she walked out. She entered the hall to her left, it was the same layout as the one above. She idled between the shelves pretending to locate a file. When she was sure no one was about, she pulled the file from under her coat and slid it amongst the others squeezed between Mountain Press Spirits and Montague Inc. That should take a while to find – barcode system, or no barcode system.
23
The next day Lucas and Harper were having lunch at a bar on a corner in Old Town. The patio was decked out in brightly coloured mosaic tables with gas burners set in the middle, a warm luxury to be enjoyed when the sun went down.
‘Did Jameson give a timescale?’ Harper asked, slurping his margarita and wiping salt from his mouth.
‘He said he would know in a few days. He also said he didn’t know how long the hit would take to plan, it depended on the target and location.’
‘What do we do in the meantime?’
‘This, I suppose.’ Lucas took a mouthful of margarita from his plastic cup. ‘We drink and we wait.’
‘What about the cash?’
‘I have a call with Bassano’s father later today. I’m not anticipating an issue, they are minted and the look on his face at the funeral said “name your price”.’
‘I figure it would be worthwhile keeping the occasional tail on Jameson. And that would be down to me, because he knows you.’
Lucas nodded as he took another gulp.
‘You need a gun,’ Harper said casually, like he was telling his friend to get a haircut.
Lucas grimaced at him over the top of his drink.
‘When the time is right. You know I hate them.’
‘They’re a necessity. You need to get your head around it.’
‘Get my head around it?’ Lucas leaned in close and lowered his voice. ‘That’s rich coming from you. Let’s not forget you shot me.’
‘Not that again, when are you going to give it rest? That was …’ Lucas paused and did some mental arithmetic. He failed. ‘… a long time ago.’
‘Twenty-two months to be precise, which I think you’ll find is not long for people who’ve been shot in the head.’
‘It was an accident, stop whining. I visited you in hospital, didn’t I?’
‘Yes, but only so you could feed your face. People brought me fruit and chocolates and you ate them.’
‘That’s horseshit. You whine worse than any wife.’
That stopped the conversation dead in its tracks. Harper looked down at his drink. The reference to wives was a little close to the bone.
‘Sorry, man. I didn’t mean that.’
Lucas smiled and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder.
‘No you didn’t. You’re a jerk who shot me in the head by accident.’ Lucas held up his plastic cup and Harper struck it with his.
‘Cheers.’
‘I saved your life, didn’t I?’ Harper said.
‘Yes, you did that too.’
They chinked their cups together again as the food arrived.
The extra payment in kind, which almost hospitalised Jameson, must have worked wonders. He had the information Mechanic wanted by mid-morning on his first day back at work.
It was relatively straightforward to locate her father. He was alive and in the advanced stages of liver cancer. He lived in sheltered accommodation in Prescott, Arizona. What the hell he was doing there God only knew. It was exorbitantly expensive and the bulk of his military pension went towards the care bills, which was probably a good thing. If he had all the money to spend on himself, he would have drunk himself to death a long time ago.
After his wife died, he disappeared off grid for several years, which must have been when he decided to kill his liver. By the time he showed up in Prescott, he was well on his way to an early death. To start with he lived in a series of rented properties, until his health deteriorated to the point where he needed the daily attentions of a nurse. His doctor suggested Pavilion Park Homes, a sheltered housing project with care facilities on site. The amount of care you received depended on how much you needed, or that was what it said in the brochure. In reality the amount of care was governed by how much you were willing to pay.
Ex-Lieutenant Commander Stewart Sells had lived at Pavilion Park for three years and needed more care than a fifty-nine-year-old man ever should. He liked the place and had a string of ex-military guys to hang around with, each one damaged in his own way and each one older than him. This was where Stewart Sells planned to spend the last of his days. Arizona suited him, the weather was hot and dry, the liquor was hot and dry, and the women were, well, hot anyway.
He was happy. The only issue was how many days he had left, and every time he attended clinic they told him it was fewer than the time before. If only he would stop drinking and allow the drugs to do
their work. But that didn’t figure for him – what was the point if he couldn’t indulge himself from time to time. The problem was that for Stewart Sells indulging himself meant drinking so much he fell down.
He didn’t own a car on account that he was rarely sober enough to drive. On the occasions when he felt the urge to travel, he rented a vehicle from Alamo and drove the one hundred and one miles south on the I-17 to Phoenix. It was a journey of one hour and forty minutes on a good day. But then taking a trip to Phoenix was always a good day because there were far more hookers in the state capital.
Ex-Lieutenant Commander Stewart Sells was happy with his lot in life and didn’t appear overly concerned about killing himself.
Mechanic was desperate, she had to do something. The latest psychotic attacks had shaken her to the core. It was strange to think that following the death of her sister the voices had stopped. The prospect of Daddy roaming around in her head again was terrifying.
The San Francisco job was a disaster, despite what Jameson had said. The hit would have been clean and executed with the minimum of fuss had she been functioning normally, if you can call blowing a stranger’s face off normal.
She had to reach some sort of closure with her father. It was the only thing she could think of to silence the voices. She couldn’t go back to the time when Daddy ruled her life, compelling her to destroy families, killing the father and children while leaving the mother barely alive. It was a desperate move for a desperate person, but after the events in San Francisco that word described her well.
Mechanic decided the safest route was to travel by car. Taking flights was always a risk because of her fake I.D. It was the best US military intelligence had to offer, but if there was an alternative method of travel, she would rather not push her luck.
At three hundred and seventy-two miles it was a day’s drive via the I-8 and the I–10 East. There were plenty of places to stop on the way so it shouldn’t be difficult. It was a three-day round trip, maybe four, depending on what she found when she got there.
Mechanic threw a bag in the back of the car and set off for Prescott as the concrete span of the Coronado Bridge was silhouetted against the early morning sun.
24
Mechanic had no idea what to expect when she found her father and even less idea what to say when she did. She hoped the words would come. Words that would enable her to make peace with the man who had blighted her life for so long. The man who had sought solace in raping her when his adulterous wife left him. The man she allowed to abuse her to protect her twin sister Jo as she slept two doors away. The man who chose his drug-taking whore of a wife over his daughters. The man who compelled her to kill.
She had no idea what to say. But she would have to find the words in five minutes’ time as Pavilion Park Homes came into view.
Mechanic drew up outside the entrance and stepped out. The place was a gated community of red-brick bungalows and manicured lawns. There was an intercom mounted on the wall, and she pushed the button.
‘Can I help you?’ the detached voice of a woman crackled from the speaker.
‘Hi, I’m here to see Stewart Sells.’
‘Is he expecting you?’
‘No, I want to surprise him. I’m his daughter Jessica Sells.’
There was silence for a few seconds then an electric motor buzzed into action and the gate swung open. She walked up a block-paved path and into the reception hall.
‘He’s in the communal room.’ Mechanic recognised the voice of the woman on the intercom. She poked her head above the semi-circular desk in the corner. ‘Straight ahead, second on the left.’
As Mechanic made her way along the pristine white corridors she could hear the chatter of excited voices. Large double doors were pinned back and she entered the room. A card school was in full swing with four guys seated at a table and a cluster of men behind them jeering and catcalling.
She recognised her father in an instant. Or to be more accurate, she recognised his voice. It still had that curious mix of soft southern drawl and clipped military diction, and it still boomed with the authority of a man used to being in charge.
What Mechanic didn’t recognise was the emaciated body and balding scalp. The ends of his fingers were white and thick, and his hands trembled as he held onto his cards. His arms were a patchwork of red scabs where he had raked them raw. The remaining skin on show was tainted a jaundiced yellow.
He looked up when she entered the room and his eyes registered a flicker of recognition, then he continued playing his hand.
Mechanic took a seat at the back of the room and watched the game. Her dad was the dominant character in the group, hurling insults and jokes around in equal measure. He looked up again, and Mechanic could see the cogs turning as he stared at the uninvited visitor.
He returned to his cards. Ten minutes later he threw his hand onto the table and blasphemed.
‘Goddamit, Doug. Do you have a stack of aces up your sleeve?’ he challenged the man sitting opposite.
‘No, but you sure have a stack of them in your ass.’
The group burst into riotous laughter as they stood up and milled around.
Mechanic made her move. She weaved her way through the crowd and touched her dad on the shoulder.
‘Dad, it’s me.’
Steward Sells turned and regarded her as if she was a street beggar, his pale watery eyes searching her face. Then a light bulb went off in his head.
‘Jo,’ he shouted. ‘Jo, how lovely to see you!’ He took her hand. ‘Hey, guys, this is my daughter Jo. Sorry – it’s been so long, I didn’t recognise you. Your hair is different and—’
‘No, Dad, I’m Jess,’ she interrupted.
He looked at her and screwed his eyes up, another light bulb going off in his head. He dropped her hand.
‘You’re not Jo?’
‘No Dad, I’m Jess.’
He took a while to adjust to the new information.
‘Hi, Jess, it’s good to see you.’ He couldn’t have sounded less sincere if he tried. ‘What brings you here?’
‘I thought it was about time I came to visit.’
He nodded his head and forced a smile.
‘You hungry?’
‘Er, yes, I could eat something.’
‘Let’s go eat.’ Stewart Sells marched out. The warm welcome for his long-lost daughter was over.
They walked out of the building in silence and across the street to a rib shack, him in front and Mechanic following behind. They were shown to a corner table and a waitress dressed in black with a pink and white gingham apron appeared with two glasses of water. The ice chinked as she set them down in front of them.
‘Hey, Mr Sells, good to see you.’
‘Hey, Janine, what’s cooking today?’ He gave her the warmest smile of the day so far.
‘The smoked baby back ribs and the slow roast belly pork are flying out of the kitchen.’
‘Two smoked ribs it is then.’
Mechanic watched the waitress disappear back to the kitchen with her unopened menus. Apparently she wanted ribs as well.
She and her father enthusiastically sipped their water so they didn’t have to speak.
Mechanic broke the silence. ‘How did you end up here? Why Prescott?’
‘It was recommended by a naval officer buddy of mine who’s also an addict. Prescott is the recovery destination of choice for people wanting to kick their dirty habits. The place is full of rehab centres, detox clinics, halfway houses, sober homes and care facilities. You name it, they got it. The locals say there’s over a thousand people at any one time in some recovery programme or another, it’s the biggest industry in town. I figured that sounded like the place for me.’
‘Is it going well for you here?’
‘I get the right medicine and the right care. I have friends and places to visit, so yes, I guess it’s going well.’
Mechanic looked at her father and tried not to let her thoughts give her away. T
he sight of his deteriorating body would suggest things were as far from going well as you could get. A million questions crashed around her head. None of which she was able to ask.
They both returned to their water.
‘Why are you here?’ Stewart Sells asked.
‘It’s been a long time and I wanted to see you.’
‘That sounds like a politician talking.’
‘No, it’s true. I wanted to find you because it’s been a while.’
‘Maybe it has, maybe it hasn’t. How is Jo?’
She had prepared herself for this question but it didn’t make it any easier to answer.
‘I lost touch with her too. Have you had seen or heard from her?’ Mechanic imagined her sister lying in a cemetery somewhere in Vegas.
‘Nope, not seen or heard from her in a long time. I thought you girls had fallen off the end of the earth.’
‘Yeah, sorry it’s been so long. That’s why I came.’
‘Things change and shit happens. But anyway you’re here now and I suppose we should enjoy our meal.’
Mechanic wasn’t sure how to respond. So she didn’t.
They sat in silence until the food arrived. When it did each plateful could have fed a family of four and the waitress struggled to manoeuvre the dishes onto the table.
‘Wow,’ Mechanic said. ‘They sure make them big.’
‘That’s why I come here. It’s enough food for at least two meals. What we don’t eat we can take out in a box.’
They tucked into the mountain of food.
‘You not married?’ he asked.
‘No, never had the time or the inclination. After the army I was so busy moving from place to place I never got the chance to put down roots.’
‘Did Jo marry?’
Every question about her sister caused Mechanic to take a deep breath before answering. Her emotions were still running close to the surface and she couldn’t let that show.
‘As I said, we lost touch, so she might be. I don’t know.’
‘I always thought she had the makings of a great wife and mother so I’d be surprised if she didn’t get hitched to some guy. I never thought you would though, you never struck me as the type.’
