by David Gordon
Then his phone rang. It wasn’t the regular office phone or the secure line. It was his personal cell, though when he looked he saw the number was blocked.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Mike, glad I caught you. I hear you had a rough night and lost some assets. So did I. Valuable ones.”
“Who is this?” Powell asked, standing up.
“We’ve never met, but we have a lot of friends in common. And some enemies, too. It’s possible we could achieve a lot together.”
“I’m still waiting for a name,” Powell said, looking out at the night.
“Fine, then, I will give you one,” the voice said. “Zahir.”
*
This time the FBI took the lead, and they showed up in force, along with a team from the NYPD’s Major Case squad, headed by one Detective Fusco. As the ensuing investigation would show, the bullet in Vlad’s head came from Felix’s gun, and no other brass was found on the scene. Felix’s cause of death was strangulation, inflicted by someone of incredible strength, quite possibly Vlad himself. The presence of the diamonds and some raw, pure heroin indicated that the group responsible for both crimes had turned on each other. Everyone from all concerned agencies was happy to declare victory and close this one out, except for Powell. But since his asset Paul was the one missing player and now the prime suspect of having absconded with the heroin, if there even was any, he couldn’t really say much, even when Pat White’s dismembered body turned up weeks later in a New Jersey swamp.
The finder’s fee of $400,000.00 was duly paid, and after expenses, split six ways it came to $61,666.66 each. Along with weapons, vehicles, technology, and miscellaneous, the expenses also included $5,000.00 cash that showed up in an envelope with no return address, mailed to one Ami Hendricks. Yelena’s share was wired to her numbered account through Juno. Joe, as usual, gave half to his grandmother and the rest to Gio, to stash for him in his safe. Joe said he didn’t need the extra money since he had a job, and it would just be a temptation. And Gio didn’t question why he had hung on to that heroin sample so long.
46
That night, while Donna was with her fellow agents at the crime scene, Joe was with Gio on his boat. It had been a long night for both men and a hassle getting those bodies onboard, so now they sat in silence, listening to the engine as Gio steered them out to sea. When Gio felt they’d gone far enough, he cut the engine and then finally spoke.
“Well,” he said, taking in Joe’s garishly colored, buttonless, aloha shirt. “At least you’re dressed for a cruise.”
Joe laughed. He’d used the boat’s first aid kit to clean up his cut and, while he would surely be bruised and aching for a few days, he was otherwise unharmed. He wondered if Dr. Z could help with the soreness from where Vlad had tried to squeeze his guts out of him like toothpaste.
Gio got out a heavy, serrated knife used for gutting fish and together they went back to the rear deck, where the bodies of Paul and Heather were spread on plastic tarps. Joe grabbed some chain and did his best to bind them together, also threading the chain through a couple of cinder blocks, supplies they had taken from a Caprisi-controlled construction site on the way. Joe had left the Corolla there, too. One of Gio’s men would retrieve and dispose of it later.
Now they dragged the bodies to the edge of the boat and, lifting together, flopped them halfway over the side. Next Gio dragged the blade across Heather’s throat and the arteries in her arms. She’d been dead awhile and her heart no longer pumped out the blood but, as with chum, the scent would help draw predators and hopefully convince them that this was evidence worth eating. He turned Paul’s head up next and hesitated for a moment.
“Let me do it,” Joe said, but Gio shook his head, then slashed Paul’s jugular open and sawed into his arms and legs. Together they heaved the load over, and with a loud splash, the heavily weighted bodies instantly vanished, sinking below the dark surface. Lastly, Gio tossed the knife.
Now that he could finally let himself relax, Joe suddenly felt his total exhaustion and sat down heavily on one of the padded fishing chairs. Gio went to a cabinet and then came back and took the other chair. He handed Joe a large bottle of mineral water and opened one of bourbon for himself.
“Thanks,” Joe said, and they clinked bottles, then drank.
“Mind if we just sit here for a little while?” Gio asked. “I feel like as soon as I step foot on land, life is going to start back up again. I just need a little pause.”
“No problem,” Joe answered. “It’s been a long time since we’ve taken a spin out here together.”
So the two friends sat in silence, floating on the surface of the ocean, watching the first specks of dawn begin to gather, like motes on the far rim of the world. Meanwhile, in the water around them, the sharks were closing in.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Doug Stewart, my agent, without whose faith and foresight none of this would be possible, and to everyone at Sterling Lord Literistic, especially Szilvia Molnar for her hard work all over the world. I am deeply grateful to my editor, Otto Penzler, who first brought up the idea of a “next book,” for his vision and insight, to Morgan Entrekin, for his guidance and support, and to everyone at Mysterious Press/Grove Atlantic, especially Brenna McDuffie and Kaitlin Astrella for taking such good care of my books. Thanks to my friends for their kindness and early reading, especially Rivka Galchen and William Fitch, and also to Nivia Hernandez and Antonio Chinea for help with my Spanish. As always, all errors are my own. Most of all, thank you to my family, who have put up with me the longest, for their love and patience, and to Matilde, who has already given me so much—even the emergency loan of a Norwegian laptop to finish this novel on time.
About the Author
DAVID GORDON holds an MA in English and Comparative Literature and an MFA in Writing from Columbia University. He is the author of The Serialist, which won the VCU/Cabell First Novel Award and was a finalist for an Edgar Award. His work has appeared in the Paris Review, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He was born and lives in New York City.
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