“Okay, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Gorley says head on in and park in the open spot in the smaller garage on the left.”
“Thank you,” Shaw responded pleasantly, and tooled on in to the community after the gate opened. It wasn’t the sort of place he intended to buy when he eventually retired. He thought that over. Buying his own island was a recurring ambition. It was still a vague idea, but it was forming a deep current in his heart. He wanted the island with a quiet, persistent patience, just as much as he’d wanted the blood of his parents’ killers, but with a less-immediate urgency. The insistent voice in him that told him to buy his own island, put a house on it, and stay there fishing away his later years, basking in years of prior success, drinking what he liked, and entertaining female visitors when he asked for them was always there in the back of his brain. Not like this—suburbia with close neighbors—but somewhere far away, with the mainland and its noise far enough away not to see it or hear it.
The Gorley residence was a four-story mansion on the east side of the street. His client, a young man named Charles Gorley, met him in the garage, looking nervous. Shaw guessed the young man was maybe 25, fresh out of college, and a partner in his father’s firm. The Gorleys were in logistics.
“You’re Shank? I’m Charlie,” he said, extending his hand.
“Shaw,” Shaw said, not bothering to accept the hand.
Charlie let his hand drop and ran the other through his hair.
“Anastasia Clawson recommended you, Mr. Shank—I mean Shaw,” he said.
“I’ll send her a thank you card.”
“Right.” He stood a moment, swallowing hard.
Shaw waited. He often discomfited people and found that an asset.
“Why don’t we go in?” Charlie said. His voice cracked a little.
“Lead the way.”
There was a side entrance from the smaller garage that led into the house. It led through a storage room into a game room. From there, a stair took them up to the third-floor display room, or gallery. Young Charles Gorley was quite the collector. There were several paintings and more than 20 artifacts in the room. One of them caught Shaw’s eye immediately, but he regarded the whole room impassively. The stone cat on the pedestal at one end seemed familiar. It was the one Jonesy Fredericks had hired him to kill for.
There was also a clay flute that had to be from Mexico or Central America, several tiny stone cylinders with what looked like chicken scratch on them, and a large figure of a fat, bald man that wasn’t Buddha, and might have been Egyptian. The rest of the cases and stands had other artifacts from the Americas and the Near East. Shaw lost interest quickly and turned expectantly to Charlie.
“My hobby,” the young man explained. “My father didn’t want me studying history or archaeology, but business management and accounting. I managed to get a minor in history, anyway, but that was all. I hate business, but I love being in my father’s good graces and having money.”
“Hm,” Shaw said, nodding coldly, waiting. He knew the nervous young man would work his way up to it eventually.
“That statue there, of the scribe,” Charlie said, pointing at the fat, bald man statue, “is 19th Dynasty Egyptian. It’s well over 3,000 years old. I obtained it legally, but surreptitiously, because the Egyptian government sometimes tries to raise issues with artifacts. I love it. The man it represents, Mehu the Scribe, dedicated his whole life to knowledge. I wish I could have done that.”
“Sounds interesting,” Shaw said, lying.
“Most people think it’s dull,” Charlie observed, so nervous he was sweating.
“Who cares what most people think? Are they paying your bills?”
“True,” the young man agreed. He fidgeted for a bit, then blurted out, “I’m being blackmailed, Mr. Shaw, by a guy I went to undergrad with. I already paid him off twice, but he says he wants more. I don’t know how he could have spent $100,000 in the last few months. I don’t spend that much, usually.”
“You’re about to spend in that range one last time on this matter, I expect. Give me his name and any other information you have.”
“It’s about the Cat over there,” Charlie went on. “It was originally stolen from Howard Carter. It’s a famous missing piece from King Tut’s tomb. Jonesy discovered that it had been here in Memphis for a century. He dated a girl whose grandfather bought it illegally in Egypt from one of the hands on the dig. He stole it from them and offered it to me. I couldn’t resist.”
Shaw had heard of King Tut, of course. He walked over and looked at the Cat, chuckling at the bruising Jonesy had taken over it. It was a pretty thing. He touched it, running his hand over it. Charlie flinched at that, his hand moving involuntarily, but he restrained himself, saying nothing. Shaw patted the hunk of stone on its head and turned back to him.
“He sold it for just a hundred thousand?” he asked. I knew I had him pegged for a dumbass.
“Another guy showed up with the cat and demanded payment. Jonesy hadn’t said he had a partner, but the guy answered the phone and showed up with the Cat, so I paid him half a million. Turned out he’d carjacked Jonesy and stolen his phone. When I called, he played along. Jonesy got hold of me later the same week, asking for a share of the money. I felt sorry for him and gave him $50,000. He didn’t act upset at that. He thanked me, but he showed up again later and demanded more. I could go to jail if he told the authorities. I paid. That time it was another $50,000. Now he wants a full $100,000. He’ll bleed me dry. I’m having to dip into my trust fund because he’s using up my disposable income. I don’t know what else to do.”
Shaw shrugged. “Have you threatened him in any way?”
“I did. I tried to warn him off, and when he persisted, I hired a shooter through 187A, Shawn Spengler, to make him back off. You might have read about him in the papers. The Appeal, the Flyer, and the Memphian all ran stories about it. He was shot posing as a pizza delivery man. Jonesy might seem like an incompetent jerk, but he’s canny. He had a handgun and shot my shooter in the head, then sat in his doorway eating his pizza until the police arrived. He claimed self-defense, and it stuck, of course. The man was licensed to kill. The police love it when one of you guys gets taken out. They don’t care if I get blackmailed, though.”
Shaw nodded impassively, having already read the story, though Jonesy hadn’t been named. Spengler, the shooter in question, was a low-rung operator with a subsidiary company of LEI. His demise had been no surprise and no loss. He drank too much.
Gorley said, “Jonesy called me after the police let him go and told me I still had to pay. He was laughing. I think he enjoyed killing Spengler. Can you imagine that?”
Shaw raised an eyebrow and looked steadily at the young man as a slight smile slowly creased his lips. “No,” he said, finally, as Gorley returned the look with dawning comprehension widening his eyes. “That thought never crossed my mind.”
Gorley gulped hard and looked away.
Shaw let the smile broaden and said, “You’ve gone from the bottom of the barrel to the top shelf, Charlie. Give me the information you have on him. I’ll find him. Do you want him scared off, or dead? You said Spengler was to ‘make him back off.’”
“I have a wife with a bun in the oven, Mr. Shaw. Jonesy has to go away. I want to be able to send my kid to a good school, you know.”
“Go away? Say what you mean, Charlie.”
“Dead,” the young man said, turning white.
“Okay, Jonesy Fredericks,” he said, glancing at the messages on his phone. “You went to college together here, or somewhere else?”
“University of Memphis.”
“Good. Got a recent picture?”
“No, why would I?”
“Did he visit you here?” Shaw asked pointedly.
“Yeah.”
“Then he was recorded on your security cameras and will still be in memory, given the system you have,” Shaw said.
“Oh, right.”
Gorley fished his smartphone
out of his pocket and accessed the security system. It took him a little time, but he found a picture and shared it with Shaw. The interview was done in a few minutes.
Chapter 5
Casing a Hit
He left Gorley’s and got on the phone with Brenda, who told him Jonesy had moved out of the apartment on Spottswood south of the U. of M. campus into a place on the riverfront atop the bluffs overlooking the park and the river. That was where the assassination attempt had taken place. Jonesy had then moved into a first-floor safety apartment, with bulletproof glass for windows, and metal plates in the doors, walls, and ceilings. Apparently, he’d tried to cover his tracks by paying with cash and using an assumed identity bought on the dark web. LEI had found him, anyway.
Shaw drove that way and took a look at the place. It had a security wall as he expected. The first-floor apartments weren’t visible. He recalled that he might have made a hit on someone living there about five years ago, but it could have been somewhere else. Across the street was an office building. He went in, rode the elevator up to the fifth floor, where he found a window in the hall between offices, and looked out. He could see over the security wall down to Jonesy’s apartment. It was facing the street and had what appeared to be one-way windows reflecting the security wall and manicured landscape.
He would have to make the hit when Jonesy opened the front door for a delivery or went out on the town. That could be a while, or not. The young man was on his guard. If he kept demanding cash, he’d either have to leave the apartment, or trust someone else to make the pickup, and at least open the door for the delivery. He was probably having groceries delivered, too. A wire transfer would have been easier, but Jonesy surely wanted to avoid having to answer questions from Uncle Sam about his income. So, the young man was likely to open the door at some point, soon, if Gorley offered to pay.
Options. Options. I can wait if I have to. I wonder if I do, though.
Shaw took the stairs, seeing if the office building had an empty floor, but it didn’t, though he could access the roof, if necessary. He took a picture of the rooftop. Unworried, he exited and drove around the complex, looking for another means of ingress. The entire complex was walled in by 10 feet of brick, topped with elegant, but effective bladed ironwork that would slice any hands that tried to grab it. There was a keypad-accessed door through the wall around the back of the complex. Security cameras with overlapping ranges watched the entire perimeter. There were ways to fool cameras and the security guards watching them, as well as ways to beat electronic keypads. There were even ways to get over spike-topped brick walls.
Once, several years ago in Texas, he’d used a dump truck as a battering ram. It had taken him through a similar security wall, and right into the apartment in question. That had been messy, expensive, fun, and totally worth it. He’d had just enough time to dig the target out from under the debris and shoot him through the head before the apartment security force had arrived, too late to intervene. He’d left his card and told them to send him the bill for damages, which he’d added to the variable expense account his client had authorized.
He circled the complex again to see if he could use that tactic, but found the logistics were wrong. There wasn’t sufficient street for the run up he’d need to gain enough momentum to get a truck through the wall and the apartment. It would have been too messy anyway, and too likely to cause collateral damage. Laughing at the memory of the Texas job, he drove home, musing about what to do to gain access to Jonesy.
Chapter 6
Phone Calls
The following morning, Jonesy called Charlie. “I’ve thought about it, Gorley, and since you’re slow to pay and tried to have me killed, the price of my silence has gone up. I want $500,000 this time, but if it makes you feel any better, that’ll be enough to make me leave you alone forever.”
“Good God, man. I could just keep hiring shooters every few weeks until one gets you for a lot less than that.”
“I can report the Cat to the proper authorities in 10 minutes. You’d have a federal agent at your house with a warrant in 24 hours. Remember when you let me see it, the day I dropped by and you made the first payoff? I took pictures when you were telling me about all your objects d’art. I wonder how many of the other items in your private gallery were stolen from the Near East?”
“You know you’d go to jail too, right, Jonesy?”
“I might, or I might get off for cooperating with the agents, but your ass would go down, no matter what. It’d be worth it to me to get a slap on the wrist to see your life ruined. Why the hell did you pay that fucking hood the full amount, you idiot? Why didn’t you check with me to see what was going on?”
“I thought maybe he was your assistant. He said he was. Anyway, he had your phone.”
“You didn’t find that the least bit suspicious? You’re stupid, Gorley. You always were kinda stupid about the real world. Now you’re gonna pay the stupid tax one more time, or you’re gonna go to jail for knowingly purchasing a stolen artifact.”
There was silence on the other end of the connection.
“You there, Gorley?”
“I’m here.”
“Send your money in unmarked bills—20 percent small bills, and the rest in large bills—to the address I sent you the other day, or the pictures on my phone go to the FBI. Get it? How many charges do you think they’ll get you on? Even if you hide the stolen artifacts in your gallery, they’ll get warrants and search every place you might have hidden them. They take the antiquities trade pretty seriously, I hear. Send the fucking money, Gorley.”
“I don’t have half a million sitting around. I’m nearly tapped out.”
“Get the money. You have two days. Call me when it’s on the way. If your delivery boy isn’t knocking on my door by 10 a.m. Wednesday, expect a knock from the FBI that afternoon. I have a guy watching your place, Gorley. Don’t be stupid. Just get my money.”
“I’ll get it together. This had better be the last time, Jonesy.”
“Don’t threaten me.”
“You can’t get blood from a stone. If you ever want to leave your tiny security apartment without watching your back, this had better be the last time.”
The line went dead. Jonesy sat there, satisfied for bit, then had a thought. He could hire shooters himself just for revenge, or to try to recover the cash. I think, once I have it, I’ll hire that Shank guy again to do him in. That’ll put an end to his threats.
He looked around the little first floor apartment, hating how cramped it was. It was safe, sure, but it was awful. Video-gamed out, he called the pimp he’d been using lately for another prostitute. Jesse was on her way 20 minutes later. Jesse, of the big, big breasts and the legs that didn’t stop. She wasn’t much for conversation, but she had no qualms about doing anything he asked. She was $400 a night, a little cheaper than he’d been using, but he needed to watch expenses.
I should invest the next payment and live on the interest. Maybe I should try that kaval gambling method Clark ridiculed. I’d love to prove him wrong. Where’s that book I had on it?
He got up out of his chair and started digging through boxes he hadn’t unpacked since moving from Spottswood Avenue. When he found it, he paced the room, reading, and peeking out through the blinds periodically to see if Jesse was in the parking lot yet. It was too soon, though. Oh, the things Jesse would do to him when she arrived.
Charlie was on the phone again as soon as he regained his composure.
“Shaw, here,” Shaw answered, in his apartment preparing to stake out Jonesy’s.
“It’s Charles Gorley, Mr. Shaw. I just heard from Jonesy. He wants half a million in unmarked bills delivered to his apartment by 10:00 Wednesday morning.”
“He raised the stakes, I see.”
“I don’t have it unless I steal it. I barely have the funds to pay you.”
“He’ll never get it, I assure you. You won’t need to complete the drop, but you might need to go through the m
otions.”
“Can you kill him at the drop, then?” Gorley asked.
Shaw said, “Give me the details. Go ahead as if the drop has to be made and send your guy to do it.”
“My guy is me. I don’t want anyone else to know. Wait, you could do it, right?”
“Conceivably, but it would be better if it was someone else.”
“I guess that’s me.”
“Then you might get to see him killed, Mr. Gorley.”
“I’m mad enough, I think I’d like to see it.”
“There’s nothing like seeing your enemies die, Mr. Gorley.”
“You’d better succeed, Shaw. I’m ruined if you don’t.”
The stress in Charlie’s voice was grating on Shaw’s ears.
“Rest easy. I’m on it.” He terminated the call.
Chapter 7
The PI’s Office
The life insurance payment was under review. George’s own policy going to Augusta and the children was assured, but the one to the company wasn’t. Luke had been fired, but that might or might not satisfy the insurance company. It was likely they’d only make a partial payment, at best. Augusta was unconcerned. She was only interested in the reports coming from her private investigator. Shank, it appeared, had been busy all year. She met the PI, Alex Cross, in his office because he preferred to speak in person. Cross was middle-aged and overweight. He liked sweet snacks and almost always had a half-eaten box of donuts, cupcakes, or Fudge Rounds on his desk. His graying hair needed a cut, and he insisted that, whether he needed a shave or not, he didn’t like beards and wasn’t growing one. He was thorough and professional at his work, though.
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