The Interloper

by Dave Zeltserman

  “Both of you, back of up slowly three steps and then lower yourselves to your knees and get on your stomachs,” Hendrick said softly, his voice making Willis think of a snake hiss.

  Both guards did as they were told, although the one who was hit in the face did so reluctantly. He had a nasty cut alongside his eye, and he shot Hendrick an angry glare as if he badly wanted to say something. Whatever it was, though, he had the good sense to swallow it back. Willis walked past them while Hendrick wrapped their wrists and ankles with duct tape. He didn’t bother gagging them since there would be no one around to hear them yell. He warned them both, though, to keep their mouths shut. “Either of you say a word and I’m shutting you up for good,” he told them in that same soft, ominous voice from earlier.

  Willis made his way to the back of the warehouse. Once there, he slid the same electronic device through another card reader and opened the doors to the loading dock. If the doors were opened from the outside, it would’ve also triggered the silent alarm to the police. With the doors opened, two of the crew members—Bud McCoy and Jared Gannier—carried into the warehouse the security guard who had earlier been patrolling the back of the building. The guard had his wrists and ankles bound with duct tape, his eyes closed, his head rolling to one side. As McCoy made his way past Willis, he told him that the guard was only napping, but otherwise was fine. “A little bump on his head, that’s all,” McCoy said. The fifth member of the team, Cam Howlitz, had backed a van up to the loading dock and sat in the driver’s seat with the engine idling. The van was one of those indistinctive cleaning service vans that are seen all over the place, but rarely noticed. Like many of those others, it was painted white, smudged with dirt, dinged with dents, and had a generic sounding business name stenciled on it. Howlitz stayed behind the wheel in case the cops showed up. There was no reason for them to, but if they did, the crew would hightail it into the back of the van, and Howlitz would try a getaway. Increasing their odds for escape were two AK47 semi automatic rifles that were stored in the van, each with magazines holding thirty rounds, as well as four fully loaded additional magazines.

  While Willis waited for McCoy and Gannier to come back with the drugs they were going to be stealing, Hendrick walked over to him to ask how he got the security door opened so easily.

  “Burke, you cheated,” Hendrick said with a forced laugh. Hendrick called him Burke, because as far as he and the rest of the crew knew, that was Willis’s name. “If I knew it was going to be that easy, no way I would’ve included you to be part of an even split. A half share at most. But you can make it up to me by telling me about that gizmo you used.”

  Willis glanced briefly at Hendrick, and said with little interest, “Not much to tell.”

  A hard smiled showed through the mouth slit in Hendrick’s ski mask. “How do I get my hands on one of those?” he asked.

  “Can’t tell you.”

  “You can’t or you don’t want to?”

  “Either one,” Willis said.

  “How about I pay you ten grand for yours?”

  “Sorry, not for sale.” Willis added in a somewhat conciliatory tone, “But anytime you need use of it, just bring me onto the job. If you’re making it an even split, of course.”

  “Of course,” Hendrick said, his voice drifting into the same soft, singsong type voice he had used earlier with the security guards.

  Willis could just about read the thoughts running through Hendrick’s mind. That if he were to kill Willis, not only would he be saving a full share for the job, but he could grab the device Willis had used, which he coveted. And if he left Willis’s body in the warehouse, it would only throw the police off track as there was nothing in Willis’s background to lead the police back to Hendrick and his crew. The problem was, though, if he tried that he’d have Big Hanley to contend with even if he offered to pay Hanley the same agent fee that he would’ve gotten from Willis. Hanley wasn’t someone you wanted to piss off, and killing a man that Hanley sent out to you on a job would certainly piss him off.

  The moment of danger passed as Willis could see Hendrick give up the idea of double-crossing him, most likely accepting that it couldn’t be done without incurring Hanley’s wrath. Willis was glad Hendrick came to that decision. While Hendrick and his crew all looked like goofballs to Willis when he first met them, they proved to be hard men and efficient at what they did, and Willis would like the opportunity to do more jobs with them in the future. If Hendrick had tried a double-cross, Willis would’ve had to kill him, and that would’ve been a shame. Hendrick, his crew, Hanley, none of them had any idea about Willis. About who he was, the training he had gone through with The Factory, everything he had done, and how quickly and ruthlessly he could kill. After he killed Hendrick, he would’ve had no choice but to kill the rest of the crew and drive off with the drugs. It would’ve been a slaughter, both with Hendrick and the other crew members. And if all that had happened, there would be no guarantee that he’d be able to safely find a fence for the stolen oxycotin. There would be a chance that he’d have to ditch the drugs, making the job a complete waste.

  A mechanical rumbling noise came from within the warehouse. Hendrick glanced at a text message on his cell phone, and told Willis that McCoy and Gannier had found a forklift and would be bringing the oxycotin to the loading dock within five minutes. Hendrick’s voice was normal again, with all hints of violence gone. Willis didn’t bother saying anything in response.

  Five minutes later, Gannier drove a forklift into sight, which carried a pallet loaded with cartons, as well as McCoy who sat on the edge of it with his feet dangling in the air. Once the forklift reached Willis and Hendrick, it stopped, and McCoy jumped off. All four of them then started loading the cartons into the back of the van. It took only minutes for them to stack one point five million dollars worth of oxycotin into it, and once they were done and the van was closed up, Hendrick signaled Howlitz to drive away.

  The van pulled out of sight and Willis closed the doors to the loading dock. Hendrick handed Willis a disposable cell phone. The plan was for Howlitz to drive straight through to Virginia to trade the drugs for money, which meant he’d be on the road for at least sixteen hours. “Cam should be back by midnight tonight,” Hendrick said. “If there aren’t any hiccups, we should be splitting the money sometime the next morning, but I’ll call you with a time and place once Cam’s back.”

  All of them then walked through the warehouse to the front part of the building, passing all four of the security guards that were left bound with duct tape. The one that McCoy and Gannier had knocked out had since woken up, and had a queasy look on his face, his eyes somewhat unfocused. The pizza boxes were still sitting on the front desk. Hendrick opened one of them and studied it. “Sausage and mushroom,” he told Willis. “Smells good. You want one of these?”

  Willis shook his head. “You three take them.” As the remaining members of the crew dug in and grabbed pizza slices, Willis left the building, got into his stolen pickup truck, and drove off.

  Chapter 2

  Willis dumped the stolen pickup truck a mile from where he had left his car. It was a cold October night, and he could’ve safely left it so he’d have less of a hike, but he felt unsettled and wanted to walk off some of the uneasiness flitting around in his chest.

  It was only two twenty-eight. The job took less than a half hour, and went as smoothly as Willis could’ve expected, even with the fifteen seconds or so where Hendrick considered double-crossing him before dismissing the idea. By then, one of Hendrick’s crew would have called the police anonymously to tip them off about the robbery so that the hostages left behind would be taken care of. There was no reason to risk any of them dying from dehydration or other reasons and turning the crime into a felony murder case. Also by then, there was no chance of the police catching up to any of them. Security video taken from the loading dock that showed the van Howlitz had driven wouldn’t help them since Howlitz by now had already moved the drugs to an
other vehicle and had ditched the stolen van. By all accounts, the job went off without a hitch, and all that was left was getting the money and splitting it. Still, though, until the split happened, the job wasn’t finished. The last job Willis worked on was stealing what turned out to be a forged painting for a backstabbing sonofabitch named Jonah Landistone. That heist also appeared to go off without a hitch until everything blew up in their faces. Even still, after shooting out both of Landistone’s knees, Willis thought he’d be able to collect the four point nine million dollars that Landistone owed him, at least until Landistone died three days later due to complications from his surgeries.

  Willis considered briefly trying to strong-arm Landistone’s nymphet third wife and widow for the money he was owed once the insurance paid off, but he gave up that idea. He had no way of proving the painting they stole was a forgery, so he wouldn’t be able extort his payment from her, and besides, she didn’t know what her late husband had been up to, so it was more likely she’d bring the FBI into the matter than to pay Willis. The four point nine million Willis was owed was gone. Once he accepted that, he didn’t give the matter any further thought.

  The one-mile walk to his car didn’t help with the uneasiness he was feeling. He knew part of it was that the current job would remain unsettled until he collected his split, but part of it was also being back in Massachusetts where he had been assigned when he was employed by The Factory. He had planned to stay away from Massachusetts until he was ready to resume his war against his old employer, and that wasn’t going to be until he had a plastic surgeon construct him a new face.

  *

  After the business with Landistone, he spent two weeks recovering from his cracked ribs in the Florida Keys, and that left him with a new urgency on the matter. That was because while down in the Keys, a Factory assassin tried sneaking into the beach house he was renting. Willis was able to overpower the man, and after a long and brutal interrogation extracted from him that The Factory had put a half a million dollar bounty on his head, and that the assassin had kept to himself that he had spotted Willis earlier in Miami before tracking him down to the Keys so that he wouldn’t risk losing the bounty to any other Factory employee. Before ending the interrogation, Willis also learned from the assassin the contact information for his handler, which Willis planned to make use of later. Willis tried to get more from the man, but there was nothing more to get. Right before the end, the man’s eyes weakened and grew watery as all of his imagined hurt and betrayal broke through. His voice a raspy croak, he demanded from Willis how he could sleep nights knowing what he had done to his country. So the man believed the lie that The Factory had fed him. That they were only killing insurgents hell-bent on the destruction of the United States. Willis saw no reason to correct him on that and make his death even more futile. Four days later, Hanley contacted Willis about the job, and while Willis had felt calm during the days leading up to the heist and while the robbery was underway, he was sure that that incident in Florida, along with the way his previous job blew up so spectacularly, contributed to the overall uneasiness he felt.

  Willis was renting a small ocean-front cottage in Cohasset, which was roughly twenty-five miles from Boston. He chose to stay in Cohasset since it was close proximity to Scituate where he had arranged to meet Hendrick and his crew. He chose the ocean-front cottage because of its location. With it being off-season, the other summer cottages were empty, and Willis would have privacy. On his way back to the cottage, he took a detour through the city of Quincy and found an all-night diner. He wasn’t particularly hungry, but he had too much restless energy to go back to the cottage then with the idea of sleeping.

  Willis sat at a booth and ordered a cup of coffee and scrambled eggs and bacon. The waitress working the late night shift was in her thirties and was thin, small breasted, and had long, frizzy red hair. Her nose was slightly upturned, but it looked cute on her, as did her slight overbite. She also displayed an infectious smile. When Willis started flirting with her, she flirted back, her body language soon letting Willis know that she wasn’t just bored or aiming for a nicer tip, but had genuine interest. His time with The Factory had left Willis at times scarier-looking than handsome, especially when his eyes held a deadness to them. When he made an effort, though, and turned on the charm with his eyes crinkling good-naturedly and his lips flashing an amiable smile, women usually responded, and the waitress who introduced herself as Kate was certainly responding. Outside of the two of them and the short-order cook, there was no one else in the diner, and she stood near Willis after his food was brought over, and they continued flirting while he ate. Once he was done, she informed the short-order cook that she had a migraine and would be leaving early. The cook made a face at that, but otherwise kept his annoyance to himself.

  Kate owned a Chevy Nova that had to be almost as old as she was, and she followed Willis back to his cottage. Bowser must’ve heard the cars pull up because he was waiting for them by the door, yawning in an exaggerated way with his tail wagging furiously, all the while trying to look as if he hadn’t just been sleeping. When he saw that Willis had company and realized that that meant he was going to be ignored for hours, his tail wagging slowed to a sluggish beat and he let out a few angry pig grunts to demonstrate how unhappy he was over the matter. Kate dropped to the floor and hugged him tightly around his thick neck and told him what a handsome fellow he was, all of which appeased him somewhat. It appeased him a bit more when Willis and Kate took him for a walk along the desolate beach near the cottage. And finally, all was forgiven when Willis filled his bowl with food, which was three hours earlier than he’d normally be given breakfast.

  Willis led Kate to the bedroom where they took off their clothes without saying a word to each other. Without her waitress uniform, Kate’s body looked more slender and toned than thin, her waist narrow, her stomach showing only a slight bulge, her legs long. Her breasts, while small, had an attractive perkiness to them, and her pubic area was covered by a thick bush of red hair, which Willis appreciated. He had been with several women of late who had been shaving and waxing that area and leaving it completely hairless. There was a hunger in her eyes as Willis lifted her onto the bed. He was near insatiable with her, but she was even more so. They both ignored Bowser when he would occasionally push himself to his feet and let out several unhappy grunts to show how annoyed he was over the situation before plopping himself back down by the foot of the bed. After a four-hour session, Willis and Kate took a break where Willis made coffee and fried up eggs and bacon for all of them, and when he gave Bowser his portion, all was again forgiven. After breakfast, they slipped on their clothes and Kate joined Willis once more as they took Bowser for a walk along the ocean, with this one being much longer than their late night one. When they returned, Willis gave Bowser a rawhide bone to keep him occupied, then he and Kate slipped off their clothes again and started another four-hour marathon session, although they were more leisurely this time. When they were done, they were both spent. Kate squirmed her body closer to Willis so that she lay nestled against him. Up until then, they hadn’t talked much, but she then started asking him the typical questions: what he did for a living, where he lived, stuff like that. He found that he liked her too much to simply ignore her. She was also looking at him right then in a funny way that made him think of an injured sparrow, almost like she was desperately needing some kindness from him, but was instead expecting only an excuse for why he needed her to leave. It wasn’t so much a neediness as she must’ve been down this road too many times before. He told her he bought and managed rental storage properties and that he was visiting the area from Akron, Ohio. It was a harmless enough lie, and Akron was a safe place for him to use. He had lived there before joining The Factory, so if she had ever been to Akron and started commenting about the area he wouldn’t be caught in a lie. Before she could ask him anything else, the disposable cell phone that Hendrick had given him rang. He got off the bed, dug the phone out of his jack
et pocket and took it to the bathroom so he’d have some privacy. He turned on the water in the sink before answering the phone, and Hendrick told him that the exchange went off as planned, that they should be able to meet the next day for their split, and that he’d call him again the next morning to give him a time and place. Willis went back to the bedroom and found Kate putting on her waitress uniform. She gave him a hesitant, uncertain look and told him he probably had work to do.

  “Nothing until later,” Willis told her. “Why don’t you take a shower and I’ll buy you lunch someplace nice.”

  A look of gratitude washed over her face, and another of her infectious smiles broke out. “I am hungry,” she said.

  After they showered, Willis took her to an Italian restaurant she recommended. It was two thirty then, and since Kate knew people there and it was an off-time for lunch on a weekday, the restaurant manager was okay with them keeping Bowser by the booth they were seated in. They ended up ordering a large sausage pizza, a third of which Bowser happily wolfed down. Willis had a couple of beers with lunch while Kate stuck with coffee. While they ate she told him how she was going to school at night to become a nurse, figuring that even though the economy was awful there would always be a need for nurses, especially with baby boomers growing older.

  “I saw on the news just yesterday that the unemployment rate has crept up to thirteen point two percent,” she said, a haggardness showing momentarily in her expression.

  “It’s rough,” Willis said, not bothering to point out how much of an understatement that was given The Factory’s efforts to reduce unemployment.

  Kate sighed, nodding. “I guess I’m lucky to have my waitress job until I can graduate school. So that’s my life now. During the week I’m in school each evening from six to nine, then working a ten to six in the morning graveyard shift at the diner.” She grinned wickedly. “Normally I’d be dead asleep right now, and I’m certainly going to be dragging tonight. But it was worth it. That was quite a cardio workout you gave me earlier!”