These Mortals

by Alan Lee

  Kerry Price didn’t speak during Beck’s soliloquy. She listened inside a nimbus of blue smoke. Manny liked her perfume.

  At the end, she waved at the doors leading into her house. A man was inside at a standing desk, typing. He left his post and approached. A Bluetooth earpiece flashed in his ear.

  Kerry Price told him, “Get me the current guest list at the Palace. And find out about Hal New, a contract assassin.”

  “Yes ma’am.” The man departed.

  She exhaled upward at the butane heating vent. “Mackenzie August. What a circus he’s been. Fell in love with the wrong escort.”

  “He wasn’t aware she was a prostitute when they met,” said Rocky.

  “I know. I have to hear about him every few months. And, of course, I know all about Veronica Summers. Such strange celebrities in our circle.”

  “A strange leader of the Kings, too, in my opinion,” said Manny, pointing at her with his cigar. He could feel Beck tense across the patio.

  “Because I’m a queen,” said Price.

  “A hot queen. Not an ugly old man,” said Manny.

  “I’m not the leader, Manuel. I’m a leader. Do you know how the Kings got started?”

  “No. And I don’t care.”

  “Listen anyway. It may shed light on how we do things. Thirty years ago, I worked at NRG in public relations. Contracts were up for renegotiations between the big energy companies and the government. Some of it was legal—millions and millions in attorney fees—and some of it was under the table. Who gets to sell which electricity to what part of the country? How will nuclear and coal and clean energy coexist? We’re hammering out details, but one thing is for certain. We do this right, we’re all going to be rich. Filthy rich. Energy consumption is going up, up, up.

  “I’m a director of public relations at the time. Young for the post, less than thirty, but I could see the future and it was clean energy. Renewable. I saw, even in the early ‘90s, that the public would demand it soon, though the old guard couldn’t see it. I kept forcing us to invest in solar and wind, because it was good for our future and good for our image. I was buying up stock as fast as I could, and it’s made millions.

  “Anyway, I digress. Everything was falling into place with contract renewals except for some old timers in West Virginia. They want to increase energy from coal, which was absurd. They couldn’t see the future, refused to transition. So we’re at a standstill. No one is budging and it could potentially cost us billions. The public didn’t know because our impasse was so buried it didn’t even make the back pages.”

  She set her cigar on the rim of an ashtray and held the glass of wine with both hands in her lap. She gazed at the ceiling, fond in memory, and continued.

  “None of us were criminals yet, or at least not violent criminals, but we didn’t get to where we were through passivity. We were the masters of the universe and we were putting our heads together, grumbling about West Virginia coal, when a guy from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission suggests we bring more pressure. It happens, he says, and it would be for the good of the country, and this coming from the government. My boss and his friendship of white titans agree. Someone knows someone, and soon after that the good ol’ boys in West Virginia changed their mind. I later found out that homes were burned to the ground. Some coal plants were sabotaged. We’re all spooked, anticipating an investigation, but nothing comes of it. Contracts are signed, and the money keeps flowing.

  “It was a revelation to me. A well placed threat, some aggression, a little violence, it goes much further than you think. Americans want to be comfortable and they’ll do anything to stay that way. They’ll even shut up about threats, if the threat goes away. You know about this, Marshal. I read how you operate.”

  “I am violent for truth, freedom, and the American way,” said Manny.

  “You’re violent because it works and it’s only helped your career. Same with me. The difference is, I’ve never been violent personally. I buy violent men and women and give them orders. Sometimes I purchase additional violence to scare my own people, but I never do it myself. I don’t even own a gun. Do you, Rocky? Do you own a gun?”

  “I do, but it was picked out for me. I’m not even sure how to load it. I can hit a target occasionally,” said Rocky.

  “It’s appropriate we’re smoking, because cigars are one of the reasons I am where I am,” said Kerry Price, picking hers up again. “Soon after the contracts were signed, I was at a conference with my boss. This was around the turn of the century. The men went outside at night to smoke cigars, and the second night I joined them. They lit up and I did too. You would’ve thought I’d taken my top off, for all the commotion it caused. A woman smoking a cigar? I was the belle of the ball. I seized hold of the celebrity and I used the influence, although maybe not the way other women would. Like with energy, I had my eyes set on the future, on bigger game. I slept with the right people. I had others fired or framed. I gained power and nurtured it, and I have been ever since. Now I’m a billionaire. The president of the largest hydrogen fuel producer in the eastern hemisphere, a market exploding, and I sit on the board at NRG and Chevron. I turned down a presidential appointment from both Obama and Trump. I’m a partial owner of two AI development companies, and that only makes up fifteen percent of my income.”

  “The other eighty-five percent?” asked Manny.

  “A few of us, some of the younger players from that meeting where we decided violence was needed to sign contracts, we stayed in touch and invested in one another. Take Rocky, for example. I’m partial owner of his casinos and shipping companies. How’d I do it? Why me and not others? And how did I get rich so quickly? Networking, technology, violence, and a willingness to work in the underworld. And that is how the Kings rose, and how we still operate.”

  “You and the others from that first meeting,” said Beck. “You became the Kings?”

  “We formed the core, yes. And still do. I came up with the name.”

  “An energy billionaire dabbling in cocaine and prostitutes and gun running,” said Manny. “Like I said, a strange leader.”

  “The core of the Kings, we’re collectively worth tens of billions. On the public record. Other than inventing Facebook or global operating systems, it’s impossible to make tens of billions without cheating. Cocaine and prostitutes make our professions easier. So does bribery and blackmail. People who work for me have people who work for them under the table, who deal with the underworld. They’re a tool, a resource I fund and tap into. I provide money and avenues and connections, and it keeps me at the top of a heap. But to be honest, the structure of the Kings is more of a myth. It’s all money and networking and fear. It would be impossible to connect me to anything. Which brings us to Darren,” she said.

  “He could potentially connect you to prostitution?” said Manny.

  “I doubt he can. But maybe. I’ve never used cocaine. Never hired a prostitute. At the top, we keep our noses clean. But Darren couldn’t. He wanted to be at the top but also dip into the underworld. He violated the sanctity of the divide. He crossed lines, and I’m not sure what he has and what he doesn’t have. So we made him a deal. One he couldn’t refuse.” She said it without a smile. “Get out or be forced out.”

  “And then he broke the deal.”

  “The penalty is death and he knows it. So he’s risking his life for something.”

  “That’s why we’re here, mamita,” said Manny.

  “You’re a gorgeous man, Manuel. I could look at you all day, despite having a wife. But you call me Mrs. Price, not mamita.”

  Beck compressed a smile.

  “To be honest, agents, I don’t care about Veronica Summers or Mackenzie August. My life would be easier if Darren killed them. Those two are somewhat beloved and idolized, and that complicates things. The Kings’ reputation among other mobs doesn’t interest me and I don’t care that Mackenzie won the game of blood sport in Italy. It’d be simpler if he was gone.”
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br />   “It’s in your best interest, mamita hermosa, that you remember that some of us care a lot.”

  Beck tensed again. Sinatra was angering the woman on purpose. Sitting still and letting someone else call the shots was hard for him. She saw his need to reestablish roles and lines of authority. He did not like Mackenzie being disparaged.

  Kerry took a long drag on her cigar, regarding him through squinted eyes. “I’m taking a risk, bringing you here, Marshal. But for the sake of Rocky, I wouldn’t. Don’t make me regret it.”

  “Don’t give me reason to throw your fine ass in jail. I’m not, because I need help with Mackenzie. But if you don’t care about mi amigo…”

  “The chief of police is in my pocket, amigo.”

  “I didn’t say police, señorita.”

  “Federal prison? You think you’re better connected than me?” said Kerry Price.

  “I think you’d be a feather in the cap of a dozen people I work with, whose numbers I’m not allowed to store in my phone. I bring you in? Twenty people get promoted, mamacita.”

  She puffed on her cigar again. Fewer people on earth were more dangerous than Kerry Price, had more wanton violence ready for her call. But all her research had confirmed Rocky Rickard’s conclusion—Martinez and Noelle Beck were members of an elite governmental task force, one so clandestine and powerful even she couldn’t learn much. And while she had sources in the FBI and the NSA and the CIA, and while she had judges and prosecutors in her pocket, she also couldn’t help picturing the photos of El Chapo and Pablo Escobar being arrested. Men who once thought themselves untouchable. Griselda Blanco, the Black Widow herself, had spent ten years in prison before getting out and being gunned down. Kerry Price hadn’t risen this far to spend the rest of her life on the run, hiding in caves. Because of a pissing contest with a federal marshal.

  The man wearing a Bluetooth ear piece returned. He gave her a thin manila folder, set two larger folders on the bar, and went back inside.

  She opened the thin manila folder. Read a moment. Snapped it closed.

  She said, “Tell me about the Hispanic man holding the gun on Veronica. Rocky thinks he may be MS-13.”

  “Mack says it looked like the hombre had Salvatrucha on his right arm and devil’s horns on his neck. Gang tattoos.”

  “MS-13 hates the Kings because we bought the contracts from Los Urabeños in Columbia, making us the sole importer of cocaine on the central eastern seaboard south of New York, and we cut them out. We don’t hire MS-13 for muscle either. We’re too high-end, too well funded. In this part of the country, MS-13 only traffics heroin, weak meth, and starving girls. They’d kill me with a machete if they knew who I was. I asked one of our gang contacts about a tall Mario in MS-13. He’s heard of a big Mario working for the 18th Street gang in Northern Virginia.”

  “The 18th Street gang.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re wondering,” said Manny, “why would Darren Robbins be working with them.”

  “And you’re wondering, why is Darren coercing Mackenzie into finding his ex-wife,” said Price.

  “Both of us wondering things about Darren.”

  “And none of us knows the answers,” said Rocky Rickard.

  “My guess is, he betrayed us. He’s a spiteful, pathetic motherfucker,” said Kerry Price, rubbing her cigar out inside the crystal tray. “But I don’t know how he’s doing it. Or to what end. I am concerned. He was supposed to relocate to a small island somewhere in the Philippines. He knew if he didn’t, he’d be slowly cut to pieces.”

  “And my guess is, he wants to betray you, reconnect with his family, kill Veronica Summers, and then relocate to the island,” said Manny.

  “One neat spiteful box of revenge?” said Rocky.

  “Maybe so.” Kerry Price gave the thin folder in her hand a little wave. “Hal New was awarded a contingency contract on the lives of Manny Martinez and Mackenzie August last week. It’s on the ledger. Those contracts are law, in the underworld, not easily broken. Here’s how I’ll help—if you find out what Darren’s doing, specifically how he plans on betraying us, then I’ll buy Hal New out,” she said.

  “With aurum?”

  She leaned toward Manny, only a little. Her curiosity displayed itself through her knitted brows. “You know about aurum.”

  “The red diamonds? Sí. Decentralized currency used by scumbag mafioso, like you. I got a few.”

  “You have aurum.”

  Manny shrugged—no big deal. “I won them in Naples. Offered them to Marcus Morgan, but he said I should keep them.”

  “You won them.”

  “Some of them. The others were in the pocket of dead hombres.”

  Rocky laughed. “Marcus said you should keep the aurum. And you don’t even know the value.”

  “There are only so many aurum in existence, Marshal. They entitle you to significant benefits in my world,” said Kerry Price.

  “There’s only one American flag, señorita. It entitles me to all the benefits I need.”

  “Really.” Kerry did a scoff and her eyes swiveled to Beck. “Is he always like this? Maybe he’s drunk.”

  “He’s the most patriotic man I’ve ever met. And he’s never drunk,” said Beck.

  “It’s refreshing, endearing, and obnoxious, all at once,” said Kerry. “Anyway. Bring me details of what Darren is doing and I’ll buy out the contract. Your life will be spared and you can kill Darren without worry.”

  “It’s not my life I’m worried about.”

  She waved her file again. “Darren checked out of the Palace. I don’t know where he is, but Veronica is probably stashed in a safe house somewhere, maybe used by MS-13 for trafficking. If you’re able to find Mario before he kills Veronica, offer him your aurum. If Mario knows what they are, he’d be a fool not to trade—he’d go from hired muscle to minor player.” She finished the last of her wine. Stood and stretched. “I can think of no further way I’m willing to assist at the moment. So we’re done for the evening.” Kerry returned to the bar and picked up the thick files left for her. She opened one, then the other, leafed through, and paused.

  She held dynamite in her hand. The papers could destroy her. Or the agents. It was blackmail, pure and simple, and it was a gamble. But better that Sinatra and Beck knew the threat existed, better they understood the rules.

  It would anger Manny. She was poking the bear. But she was a bear too.

  She distributed the folders to the federal agents and watched their reactions.

  Manny already guessed, but he looked anyway. Inside were printouts of his bank statements. Copies of his personal email inbox. Photographs lifted from his cellphone. He found the same for Beck, her bank records, her emails, her photos, plus her social media activity. At the bottom, photographs of her parents and one of Kix August.

  They’d been thoroughly hacked, as Manny anticipated they might. The price of cutting deals with kingpins. Fortunately they hadn’t breached any governmental firewalls.

  Beck’s hands were trembling. Her family. Her parents. They were being threatened.

  Kerry stood at the door, ready to leave. “I warned you at the beginning. Coming here was a risk. Now you’ve got to keep secrets or the Kings will burn your whole life down.”

  Manny tossed his folder and the papers into the fireplace. The edges curled and darkened.

  “Goes both ways, reina. Darren isn’t the only one shaking hands with the devil,” he said.

  Kerry lost a little of her breath. Good hell, what a man Martinez was, standing beside her fireplace—he looked taller than he was; he looked like a tiger, lethal and beautiful. She said, “And you’re the devil?”

  “I’m the worst of the devils, I need to be.”

  “Coming here, endangering your lives and careers, is it worth it, agents?” said Kerry.

  Beck gave a little nod. Her pulse raced.

  Manny said, “Por supuesto. Of course.”

  “Why? What is it about Mackenzie August,” sai
d Kerry Price, standing at the glowing entrance to her home, “that endears such loyalty?”

  “Too many things to count.”

  “Pick one.”

  “He sees the good,” said Manny.

  “In the prostitute?” Kerry asked.

  “In me.”

  Kerry Price made a, “Hm,” noise of surprise. For such a formidable man, it was a vulnerable statement.

  Manny said, “And in Ronnie Summers. And in others. There’s a community around him, usually. There was in Los Angeles, and now there is in Virginia. He builds it. I think that’s worth sacrificing for. Also he’s ineffable.”

  “He’s…?” said Kerry and paused. She smiled a little and glanced at the other two. “He’s ineffable.”

  “Know what that means?” said Manny.

  “I do.”

  “I don’t. But he says it and I like the way it sounds. Good American word, ineffable.”

  She sucked at her teeth a second. “Maybe I should meet this Mackenzie one day.”

  “Only on his terms, and I’ll be there too.”

  “By his side,” said Kerry Price.

  “Always. I have exhaustion joy die fiver.”

  “You mean,” said Beck, “inexhaustible joie de vivre.”

  “What I said.”

  The leader of the Kings couldn’t help smiling some more. “Do you know what that means, Marshal?”

  “Means I’m a pain in the ass. You keep it in mind and we all get out of this alive.”

  Monday Night

  Mackenzie

  Kix was up late. On some subterranean level, he had detected my anxiety, and the fear of Timothy August, and the anger of Sheriff Stackhouse, and it was causing him distress.

  I assumed.

  He might just be cranky.

  After an hour of pleading that he quiet the hell down, I hitched him high on my back in the ObiMama sling and I circuited the house—up the front staircase, through the hallway, down the rear staircase, through the kitchen and television room, and repeat. The rhythm and changing scenery coaxed him to a whimper.