Shank

by Robert J. Krog

  Susan got off the phone shortly, and they waited where they were. Augusta realized no one else in the parking lot had noticed the incident. They’d been between two tall vehicles and it had lasted only a moment.

  “Thank you. I don’t know how you did that, but thank you,” Susan said.

  “We got lucky. His gun jammed, and he fell for a bluff. He ran because he thought I had a gun.”

  “He would have killed you.”

  “He would have killed you.”

  “You didn’t have to help me. You could have just called 911 and made a fuss without getting between us.”

  “I know.”

  Two police cars zipped into the lot within five minutes. The women waved them down.

  After the officers took the information from both of them, the older one asked, “Mrs. Cahill, is there any reason someone would want to have you killed?”

  “No,” she said. She was tired and sitting in her driver seat, worrying that her groceries were going to spoil, though the November day wasn’t hot. It didn’t seem like the idea had ever crossed her mind.

  “Mrs. Sanders,” the officer said, turning to Augusta. “You’re sure he asked you if you were a bodyguard?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  The officer checked his notes and asked, “Then he grinned and said the bullet came with the job description?”

  “That’s right.” He’d said it; she was sure of it. The implication hit her. It had been nagging her and had finally fallen into place. Why would anyone want to have a woman like Susan murdered?

  He turned back to Susan. “Mrs. Cahill, this has every earmark of being an attempted hit. Who might benefit from your death?”

  “No one. Why would anyone want to? I’m just a housewife.”

  “What’s your husband do for a living, ma’am?”

  “He’s an attorney, and quite good at it.”

  “Does he or anyone have a life insurance policy on you?”

  “Yes, he took one out last…last year. It was around Christmas. He said it was a present to ease my mind about the future.”

  “Mrs. Cahill, you have no rivals? You aren’t running for any public office, not even the school board?”

  “No, Officer.” It hurt Augusta to see the expression on her face.

  “Are you having an affair with anyone’s husband?”

  “No, Officer.” She gestured at her out of shape frame and her face and laughed.

  “Were you a witness to a crime?”

  “No, Officer.”

  “Would anyone have any reason to think you’d witnessed a crime?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Do you stand to inherit money from a recently deceased relative?”

  “No. Not that I know of.”

  “Is your marriage happy, Mrs. Cahill? I hate to mention it, but paying a contract killer can be cheaper than divorce, and a shorter ordeal.”

  “Are you seriously suggesting that my husband is trying to have me killed?”

  “I can’t say one way or the other, Mrs. Cahill, but it happens more often than you’d think.” He paused. She breathed hard, staring at him, eyes wide, nostrils flaring. Augusta, who’d been standing a bit away, came over and took her hand.

  “Mrs. Cahill,” the officer said, “you should think about staying somewhere other than your own house, just in case he tries again. As you know, hiring a shooter—a hit man—isn’t illegal in this country. We can’t arrest anyone in this matter except on a charge of attempted robbery, which wouldn’t stick any longer than it would take for the man in the red flannel shirt to show us his LEI ID.

  “I hate to say it, Mrs. Sanders,” he said, looking at Augusta, “but the only way we could have arrested him for this was if his gun hadn’t jammed, and he’d succeeded in shooting you. Telling him you’re a bodyguard wasn’t smart. The law allows licensed shooters to kill registered bodyguards in pursuit of a hit. He was an amateur, it appears. No professional would’ve taken your word for it so easily. These guys generally research their targets pretty well.”

  Augusta nodded and smiled.

  The cops finished taking the report soon after, and the two ladies lingered, talking.

  “I don’t understand what happened, Augusta,” Susan said. “His gun kept jamming, and you were so brave. I’ve never seen anyone so confidant in any situation. You were amazing.”

  “I guess I wasn’t given time to be frightened. I couldn’t let anyone hurt you. You’re too nice.”

  “I don’t understand how it could have happened,” she said again.

  Augusta shrugged. “Maybe it was magic.” It was, dear, but you’ll never believe that.

  “The way his gun jammed was like magic.” Susan gave a nervous laugh. “Kaval?”

  “I think that’s the word the conspiracy theorists use, yes.” She shrugged. “Maybe it was. Who’s to say?”

  “You’re making fun of me.”

  “No, I wouldn’t do that. It was pretty weird. Maybe it was our guardian angels?”

  “I have less trouble believing in them.”

  Augusta’s mother had told her that the existence of magic didn’t mean God and angels weren’t real. They weren’t disproven because magic could happen anymore than by breakthroughs in science. And miracles, she had said, were not the same thing, though God could work miracles that looked like either, or could miraculously allow either to work when they otherwise wouldn’t have. She knew that her gift was extremely reliable. It had never failed her—not once. In her careful research into kaval, she’d read that it was supposed to be useful, dangerous, unpredictable, and unreliable. What had happened to her the day of her birth was, so far as she could tell, somewhere between kaval and miracle.

  “Our groceries will spoil if we stay here much longer, Susan. Why don’t I follow you home and help you unload. I’ll stick around for a bit if you like?”

  “I’d like that if you have the time. I could make us some lunch. I’ll have to pick the baby and the toddler up from my mother’s just after. Jack…” Worry creased her brow, but she dismissed it with a shake of her head. “Jack has the older children at the park. He wants to golf today. I’m sure he’s wondering where I am. I ought to call him and get home.”

  “I’ll follow you.”

  Chapter 7

  The Love of Money is Hard on Friendship

  Shaw woke to the ding of a text message, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and picked up the phone. He stopped on seeing his hand. It was a regular human hand, not the hand of a man lizard. He’d had that dream again in which he was a reptile in a supermarket looking to kill. He rubbed his eyes again, the dream fading.

  The message from Brenda at LEI was about three possible jobs.

 

 

 

 

 

  Shaw read through them, replying declined to the first and second quickly, but pausing on the third. The client was looking to acquire an item of great value if the hit succeeded. A large house on East Parkway was offered as collateral if the sale failed. There were timing issues and other stipulations. He thought it over. There was a body disposal request as well, which was a little unusual, and made it slightly more challenging. The client wanted it to look as though his roommate had simply disappeared. It wouldn’t do to wait for the regular contractor to remove the body.

  Brenda said that LEI would take possession of the house immediately and return it if the client made the sale he hoped for. It di
dn’t matter to Shaw. Of the three options, it was the only one that was even slightly interesting. He accepted.

  Shortly, he received another message from Brenda stating that the client would authorize, providing the time and place of the hit when he was ready. Shaw was to wait for the call. A target profile followed. He looked it all over and memorized the details.

  When the young man’s picture was burned into his memory, along with his address, class schedule at the university, and so forth, he knocked on his neighbor’s door for a game of backgammon. It was Thursday, and Father Darren usually had time off in the morning. The two neighbors played the game and drank brews two or three times a month. Shaw found it amusing that he, an angel of death, was sociable with a man of God. If only Father Darren knew. One day, Shaw would tell the priest how his backgammon buddy actually made his living.

  “Always great to see you, Gordon,” the priest said. “Are you here for some backgammon?” His welcoming smile was warm.

  “Of course,” Shaw said. “Gotta beer?”

  “Of course.” He gestured to his couch, and Shaw sat down to pull the game out from under the coffee table and set it up. Father Darren went to the kitchen to fetch beer from the refrigerator. Returning, he handed a bottle over and sat in the chair opposite. “How’s the stock market treating you this week?” he asked, though the topic wasn’t one that Shaw thought really interested him.

  “Cryptocurrency is the thing,” he replied easily. So a news story on the radio had told him. “How’s the building going on your new rectory?”

  “Slowly, but it’s begun at last. I pray daily for it to be finished without costing the parish and the chancery any more money. There are a lot of other endeavors the cash could go to. The St. Vincent de Paul food ministry is always in need. Birthright is trying to save lives. People insist the rectory must be restored.”

  “In the long run, owning is more practical than renting, Mike. They’re right about that. There’ll be a mortgage, right?” He looked across the table at his neighbor, to whom money was only important so it could feed others, amused. I’d rather eat steak myself than see to it that other people are fed boxed potatoes.

  “Yes.”

  “Then it’ll be affordable. Don’t sweat it so much.”

  “Maybe you’re right. Gordon?”

  “Yes?”

  “I saw that you donated a generous sum to the building fund. Thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  “Shall we see who goes first?”

  “Let’s.

  When Jonesy met up with Clark later that night, he was excited. “I got it. I got the loan. I had to be kinda inventive, but I got it.” He flashed a wad of bills at his roommate in triumph.

  “Hundreds?”

  “I got the loan,” he declared. “Let’s go.”

  Clark raised an eyebrow. “Not from a bank?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “They made a loan to a student without income?”

  “I had to be inventive,” Jonesy said with a shrug. “Let’s go.” He threw the wad of cash into his backpack, which he slung over his right shoulder. It thunked heavily.

  “Where?”

  “C’mon, Ryan is gonna let us take another look at it while the auctioneer is there. We might get a deal ahead of the action.”

  Clark blinked. “Okay. Way to go.”

  “What? Let’s go,” Jonesy said distractedly, his hand already on the doorknob.

  They headed out to Clark’s car. Once inside, Clark asked, “Why is the auctioneer there at this time of night?”

  Jonesy said, “Watch where you’re going.”

  There was another car behind them, but Clark had already seen it. He backed out onto Spottswood and headed east.

  “If you’re worried about accidents, you should wear a seatbelt.”

  “I hate seatbelts. I feel like I can’t breathe,” Jonesy said, texting briskly.

  “That’ll come back to bite you one day, roomie.”

  “You’ve been saying that for years. It hasn’t yet because you’re such a good driver.”

  “So,” Clark prompted. “The auctioneer?”

  “He has a day job, and a few items still needed to be cataloged and priced. He’s working late.”

  “Oh. Lucky break, maybe.”

  “Yeah, lucky break.”

  It struck Clark that Jonesy’s voice was a little off, almost evasive. What’s he up to? It set him to pondering as he drove. Jonesy was quiet for about five minutes, texting, and then they were nearly there.

  “Pull in at the Popeye’s and park there, okay?”

  Clark frowned and said, “Isn’t that a little inconvenient? Why don’t we just drive all the way down to the unit?”

  “Just trust me. It’s best to be as discreet as possible.”

  “Sure. Discretion is the word.” What is he up to?

  “Pull in from the side street and back into a space away from the store, okay?”

  Clark obliged. Once he’d parked in the Popeye’s parking lot, they stepped out, Clark eyeing his roomie carefully, and Jonesy threw his oddly heavy backpack over his shoulder. There was just one car at the drive-thru and a few others in the parking lot. The restaurant was about to close.

  “This way,” Jonesy said, stepping over to the chain-link fence between the properties. They were as far away from the self-storage office entrance as they could get. Here, the fence ran into a hedge of boxwoods along a residential property.

  “What are we doing, buddy?” Clark asked.

  “Being inventive,” was Jonesy’s laconic reply.

  Clark watched his roomie produce a pair of bolt cutters from his backpack and proceed to cut his way through the fence.

  Clark watched, amazed. “What about your wad of cash?”

  “All ones, except for the hundred on the outside. Sorry, I needed to get here somehow.”

  “You lied to me.”

  “I do that a lot. You should be accustomed to it by now.”

  “Are you familiar with the legal terms ‘larceny’ and ‘breaking and entering?’” Clark asked.

  “Yep, and I wouldn’t commit it for peanuts.”

  “I wouldn’t commit it at all.”

  “You’re already aiding and abetting. Why not go all the way and get rich from it?”

  “Damnit, Jonesy, I’m not a thief.”

  “Is it really theft if we are stealing from a thief?” he asked as he slipped through the fence.

  “Seriously, this is stupid. If the fact that it’s wrong doesn’t move you, would the fact that this place has security cameras at the end of every row dissuade you? Let’s go back to the car, shall we?”

  From the other side of the fence, Jonesy looked around, his eyes searching. “They aren’t high quality security cams. I saw the feeds when we were in the office talking to Ryan. In the dark, they’ll be next to useless, and Ryan will be doing anything but looking at them. No worries. You coming?”

  “You can’t do this, buddy.”

  “I am doing it.”

  “The restaurant has cameras, too.”

  “That’s why we came in at this end of the lot and backed in. Coming?”

  “No.”

  “Have the decency to wait for me, at least?”

  “I’m going to call the cops if you aren’t back on this side of the fence in three seconds.” He pulled his phone out. The screen lit up, flashing in the dimness.

  Exasperated, Jonesy’s eyes searched the area. They fell at last back on Clark. “Do whatever you want. I’m going to get King Tut’s cat, and either get famous or rich.”

  “Damnit.”

  Jonesy turned and plunged between the rows of units. Stunned, Clark stood a moment, phone in hand. He looked at the screen, looked toward the office, where Ryan was no doubt playing video games or texting a much younger girl, then stuffed his phone in his pocket, cussing, and eased through the fence after Jonesy. Am I going to help him or turn him in? He jogged after the shadowy form, ca
tching up with him as he turned down the aisle that led to the abandoned storage unit full of Michelle’s dead dad’s stuff.

  “I’m calling the cops, Jonesy.”

  “You would have already, if you really meant to,” Jonesy replied, shining a light at the unit numbers.

  “No, I mean it.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket, fumbled it, and dropped it on the ground. While he scrambled for it, Jonesy located the unit and stuck his little flashlight in his mouth so he could use both hands on the bolt cutters.

  The thought of Jonesy going to jail gave Clark pause. A sudden fury overcame him, fury at the position he’d put him in, fury at his own indecision. His affection for his loser roommate was inexplicable. He should have no problem with a man committing a crime going to jail, yet he paused, shaking in rage, and didn’t call. A few feet away, Jonesy grunted hard, swore, and managed to cut the lock. It fell with a clink on the pavement. Then Clark did something he’d often thought of doing, but never had. He stepped up to Jonesy as he pulled the door up, swung him around by a shoulder, and hit him in the head.

  Jonesy fell into the unit, crashing into a pair of lamps.

  “Get your ass up and get back in the car. We aren’t stealing anything.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Jonesy said emphatically, rising unsteadily to his feet. “Son of a bitch.”

  “To the car,” Clark repeated.

  Jonesy came out swinging, and if Clark hadn’t ducked, he’d have taken one on the nose. Instead, Jonesy’s fist encountered his skull with a painful crunch. Clark staggered, then came back swinging. They pounded each other for what seemed like forever, adrenaline coursing through them; they didn’t feel it as much as they would later. Jonesy changed tactics part way through and tried a wrestling move. As with all things he did, it was half-assed, and he left an opening Clark exploited by accident.