“Sounds like quite a guy.”
“Dangerous as fuck. I’ve said too much already.”
“I’m not working for him.”
He upended the long neck and emptied it. I gestured to the bartender for another.
“You’re having a bad day,” I said.
“Could have been worse. I need to remember that.” His head bobbed downward, and he shook it in a slow side-to-side. “I looked the other way on a lot of stuff.”
They rustled up a barmaid who brought over a little round tray with a fresh bottle. He took it and thanked her, sipped. Then he reiterated that he shouldn’t say too much.
We talked about the weather and the Saints for a while. While he was focused on his bottle, I befriended the barmaid, and she brought whiskey after a while. He downed that without really noticing the transition, leaving the regret to me as the conduit for his deepening misery.
“He got mad at this call girl last week,” he said as his tongue loosened. “She was supposed to be helping schmooze somebody he wanted to get close to, businessman. Didn’t turn out like he wanted. He had me drive to this deserted parking lot. I thought he was just gonna slap her around in the back. That’s where it started.”
It sounded right in character.
“What’d he do?”
“Slapped her and punched her in the back, then dragged her out the door by her hair. This was a beautiful girl, too, escort type, not a meth whore. He shoved her onto the ground. Had his big boy at his side, you know. She crawled, trying to get away. He stomped her in the ass, flattened her. Then he took a gun from his sidekick, put it to her head, and starts yelling `yzha’ `yzha.’ Took a while to figure out what he wanted, his face getting’ all red. Finally, his goon, Nestor, explained he was saying eat. He’d had me drive to this gravel lot. Girl’s face was already scratched up and bruised. Makeup’s runnin’. She has to sit there and eat rocks. God knows what that did to her.”
Another business deal gone wrong. He clearly hated when that happened, even as he worked toward a higher degree of respectability.
If I’d needed it, I had more confirmation he was a very bad man, but I didn’t find it soothing.
If I’d been a cop, and I could turn up the girl wherever she was recovering, I’d have the beginnings of a case, but the Holsts wouldn’t really be interested in an assault charge, not even a heinous one. I needed info on Alexeeva’s patterns and habits.
The guy killed another long swallow as he relived his memories.
“What was so important that he got this upset?”
“He was trying to wiggle into some financial deal a company was running, I think. The guy was supposed to know some details that would give Mr. Alexeeva a way in. Something about money being forwarded from one person to the next. The guy didn’t give as much detail while he had his dick in the girl’s mouth as he was supposed to.”
I tucked that away for later and bought the guy another round, and the driver remembered the name of the businessman Alexeeva wanted info on was Ryan Moates because he’d thought it sounded like a castle.
I cataloged that too using the same mnemonic, and as he grew more sloshed, I pumped him for what he knew of Alexeeva’s schedule, gleaning the details he knew about when he tended to visit his club and when he spent time at the carriage concern.
When he grew so sloshed he ceased to be useful, I paid for a couple more drinks so he wouldn’t remember me well, felt around his coat until I found a phone, called him a cab because I didn’t know how to use Uber and left enough for the fare tucked in his shirt pocket, hoping for the best for him.
Chapter 13
Rose slipped into a chair across from me, looking fresh and comfortable in a grey cotton dress that let her appear professional without wilting in the later afternoon humidity. I wasn’t faring quite that well with my sleeves rolled up and shirt un-tucked even though I’d changed and showered before our meeting.
We ordered mojitos that came in tall glasses and looked impossibly refreshing with the mint leaves diving amid the ice cubes.
“You aware of any Ponzi schemes in town involving a guy named Ryan Moats?”
With a long, dark nail, she encouraged a lime wedge to swim a bit.
“If I knew of anything like that, I’d be required to report it as an officer of the court.”
“Unless you represented him or his firm?”
“I don’t really do financial cases.”
“So, who do you hear rumors about?”
“Moates is at an investment firm called Ruffin and Whitehead.”
“Top of your head? Really?”
“Everywhere’s a small town, and I work with a big firm. We know where the big players are. No indication I’ve heard of that they’re doing a Madoff.”
“Could he have something going on the side?”
“Anything’s possible, some investment scheme doing a money-in money-out game, but his reputation’s above board. Why does this matter?”
“Thought it might be something I could work with. Details you don’t need to know and I don’t need to leave a paper trail about.”
It would probably be better to look for another opportunity to isolate Alexeeva. The more complicated, the more likely I’d be to get nabbed, but I was in an exploratory phase.
“Let me ask around a little just in case it helps,” Rose said.
I watched her hair brush her tanned shoulders for a while as she sipped her drink.
“So, you’re not into family law, either?” I asked after tearing my attention away from her skin.
“Not my specialty.”
“What do you think I’d have to do to win sole custody of a daughter?”
“Sole custody’s hard.”
“If you’re technically an ex-con? My lawyer didn’t include rosy in his pallet for the picture.”
“It’s hard under better circumstances than yours. Physical well-being of a child’s an issue. So’s psychological. If the mom’s living with a dangerous boyfriend or if she’s abusive herself you can get a toehold. If she’s a single mom doing the best she can, gets more complicated. What about joint custody? Better than the none you have right now.”
“Sounds like either’s a tough game. I think we have the dangerous boyfriend angle covered. I guess knowing where my ex and my daughter are might be helpful.”
“I don’t suppose you have a lot of time to look just now.”
“Yeah, I’m a little preoccupied.”
“Maybe I could put some feelers out. Text me what you know.”
“Billable-hour clock running?”
“A courtesy.”
“I’ll give you her mom’s name,” I said. “Last known address is Casselberry, Florida.” I added Finn’s name. Didn’t say more. Less she knew the better if all else failed and I had to take a diplomatic approach with him too.
“Should be a start. Is she unfit?”
“Possibly.”
“Does she hate you?”
“Now, yeah.”
No one sets out to marry the wrong person, the person that combusts when combined with you or who makes you combust. Things always look good up front, when you’re staging the fairy tale in your mind. I’d met Sandra on the job. She’d been bartending at a pretty nice place in the Quarter where an argument had escalated into a shooting. She’d been mixing the place’s version of a Hurricane for a tourist when the gun had come out at the little table near the window.
She’d been wearing little makeup that night, and her hair, brown then, had been pinned in a tangle behind her head. Sitting at a barstool when I walked in, black tee shirt, black jeans, she looked nervous as she talked to a uniformed officer.
“She got a pretty good look,” he said when I walked up.
I lowered myself a little so we could see eye-to-eye and tried to calm her. She didn’t know names, but she’d seen the guys in the place regularly. Buddies. Until they weren’t.
Nobody would have called her beautiful that night, but I s
aw something in her eyes as I talked to her, working to calm her down. She was scared of having to testify. A common thing. I told her she probably wouldn’t need to. People usually like to hear that.
Sometimes it’s true.
I got a story or two about cleaning up vomit out of her, learned she took classes at Delgado with an eye toward something related to early childhood development and finally coaxed a description out of her.
Connecting the dots didn’t prove that hard.
We found the guy in the cheap hotel where he was hiding out, and he confessed when questioned. Sandra really didn’t have to testify, but I’d managed to get her number as we talked. I called her a few days later, and we went for a beer.
She’d changed her hair color to blond by then, and she wore it unpinned and coiffed in soft waves with a sequined shirt and black jeans. She laughed a lot that night and talked a lot about the work she planned once she’d earned her degree. She’d be helping kids with pervasive developmental disorders. She was working on a paper on something called Rett Syndrome. With my days devoted to dealing with street crime and dead bodies, she’d seemed like a princess.
“She’s not really up to date on who I am these days,” I said. “She was happy enough with having a little money when we were together. Less happy being tied down, I guess.”
“You paying child support?”
“A trickle. I had an account set up before I went in. There’s not a lot left in it.”
“You need to improve the flow, but don’t get crazy with the infusion. Someone who shouldn’t might notice that. I never said that.”
I nodded, and she let another sip of her drink pass her lips. “I should be going.”
I stood and watched her weave away through the rows of tables, then slipped the disposable cell from my pocket.
It would make me more vulnerable, but I was going to need some help. I tapped out the number to check in with Arch.
Chapter 14
The PSM was ready on my next visit to the McClusky compound.
Kenneth presented it proudly in a little case on a bed of grey foam. It was black and shiny, as small and thin as advertised, looking like it came right out of a spy movie. I said as much.
“You might say it’s a cousin of the James Bond guns,” Arch said. “Or maybe the cousin of the bad guys’ guns.”
That kind of fit. I was one of the bad guys now.
I tested the weight of it in my hand, tested the fit and looked at the cartridges that came with it, recalling the promises.
“There enough of these to try it on your range?”
“More where those came from,” Arch said. “It’s out here.”
He flapped open a back screen door, and we trudged out to an area that had been cleared for a target array, a row of head-and-torso silhouettes on thin posts. Numbered white circles within circles decorated the figures with a couple of orange priority areas indicated at the head and center of the abdomen.
“Kenny put out a fresh set for you.”
“Just for me?”
“Nah, these are the ones the business executives like to use when they’re here. Makes ’em feel like real men, I guess.”
I’d qualified on ranges throughout my law enforcement career. I’d been competent, never aspiring to be a marksman or join competitive shooting teams. I knew a guy who’d shot himself in the leg while training on one of those. The other cops had called him Shitty Shitting Bang Bang after that, Bang Bang for short, not the respect he’d hoped for in joining the team.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to test my skill level with an audience, but I loaded the PSM as Arch looked on. When I tested it in my hand again, the weight and fit were still comfortable. I’d been expecting it to feel a little awkward like one of those miniature plastic forks they give you at picnics or the Colonel’s. With the grip in my palm, I still had about an inch of lower hand showing. I leveled the weapon between both hands, sighted down the barrel and worked to get a feel for it, then planted my feet.
“Go ahead,” Arch said.
“Kenny’s not out there somewhere behind it is he?”
He called to his brother and got no answer, so I tried squeezing the trigger.
A tuft of ground kicked up somewhere off to the side of the targets.
“Been a while, eh?” Arch said.
“Small arms training wasn’t something they offered or encouraged at David Wade.”
I adjusted my stance, sighted again, drew a breath, held it, squeezed, and winged one of the silhouettes as the grip snapped back against my palm with a mild recoil.
“You’re likely to be in close when you need that, right?”
“I’d rather not have to be.”
I leveled again, took a few seconds to calm myself, pretended Arch wasn’t looking and managed to get inside one of the numbered circles. One of the larger ones.
“I think it’s pulling,” I said.
“Really?”
Arch took the weapon, stepped into a spot facing the targets, raised the barrel and squeezed off the rest of the clip, sending the rounds into the priority region of the chest.
“It’s windy where I was standing,” I said.
He grinned. “A few pointers?”
“If that was my old service weapon, those figures would be on gurneys now,” I said.
After we’d reloaded, I let him suggest the position for my feet then let him move my arms a bit, and in a while, I was showing signs of improvement.
“You’re not stopping a subject on every shot, but you’re getting better,” Arch said. “After lunch, you may be ready for the maze.”
“What’s the maze?”
“After lunch.”
He made Italian poor boys, which we call po’ boys in Louisiana. It took him a while. I watched European sports via the satellite until he finished.
The sandwiches were as good as the best shops in the French Quarter. I felt a little sluggish after the thick bread and slices of ham and soppressata hit my stomach.
I didn’t really care about televised Snooker, but it passed the time until early afternoon when we ventured outside again, departing the cleared area and following a trail back through underbrush until we came upon a mass of camouflage netting featuring a pattern of mostly green and reddish brown.
“Why don’t you wind your way through and see how it goes?” Arch said, peeling back a flap that offered an entrance.
I shrugged and stepped inside, into a narrow and shadowy passage. Only a few pinpricks of light slipped in here or there.
“The businessmen really get a kick out this,” Arch's voice carried through the netting. “I think they usually pretend they’re stalking their CEOS.”
Not too far removed from what I was up to. Maybe it would be helpful.
I crouched a bit, got the PSM between my hands and let my eyes adjust from the sunlight, taking note of plywood and two-by-fours that provided the structure’s framework.
The ceiling dipped lower after a short stretch. I crouched and checked around the first turn where the shadows deepened and then moved forward.
I felt a bit of tension at my shin, and my heart jumped into my throat when a light came on about four feet ahead of me, illuminating a grey-green figure with bright red streaks from its chin down its chest.
I pumped a shot into almost instinctively. Given the range, I scored a hit just to the right of the sternum and blood began to bubble out of the puncture, or red liquid.
“The fuck is this thing?” I asked.
“It’s a zombie,” Arch called from outside. “Don’t let him bite you.”
I fired a round into the forehead and produced more syrupy crimson. It was supposed to be a game, but the faux realism was sobering. This was what I sought to accomplish.
“It’s done for,” Arch said.
I snapped out of it and snaked on, stooping, crouching into two duck walks in even lower spots, and I scored reasonable hits on printed targets that looked like terrorists, criminals and a
couple more grey torso figures with ill-defined features, though they were man-like enough to make me think again about what I was really up to. No illusions allowed.
That took away any of the zippy joys the vice presidents might have felt in the maze. Even though he was a man who’d make a beautiful girl eat rocks, Alexeeva was a man, and I’d been task with deciding on the end-of-the-line.
I knew what it felt like to do that in a self-defense situation with Leo Maier.
I’d spent some time in talk therapy about it, tried then to find words to express the depth of the emotion, but it had been hard to put into words.
I knew, even with the consequences, I’d had to pull the trigger then. He would have pumped bullets into me. My partner was already shot.
So, guilt was not the term for what I’d felt. It was more a broad and complex sense of responsibility, almost something cosmic, an irreversible act and a conversion of a man from something to nothingness. It had left me feeling very alone, not the only one who’d taken a life, but suddenly not quite like everyone else and not really capable of expressing that. There was a dose of sadness in that mix too, if not mourning. I’d never known him. I could not mourn, but I could feel the distress of loss and the anguish of something I couldn’t take back.
I had to ask myself if I could do it again not under threat but with strategy and dispassion. Pulling the trigger on a toy zombie or a two-dimensional paper figure could only help achieve accuracy. It couldn’t predict.
I wasn’t sure how I’d find the stomach for it when the time really arrived. The provolone and pork in my stomach grew heavy as I thought about it, and the little black weapon ceased to seem cool and elegant if it ever really had. It was metal designed to hurl metal into human tissue.
I stared at it in a sliver of sunlight near a support beam.
It quite possibly had already done that in some cold back alley of New York or Washington. Maybe that thought was glamorizing its provenance, but it didn’t seem out of the question that someone with immunity might have destroyed an enemy or a colleague who’d failed in some way. So, there I was, a lonely figure with a weapon perhaps equally damned.
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