by Mark Dawson
He looked over at Lila. She was sleeping, her body angled in his direction, with her head resting softly against his shoulder.
The plane rumbled down the taxiway and settled next to the gate. “Lila,” he said tenderly.
She stirred, her eyes slowly opening. “We here?”
“We’re here. Let’s go.”
He stood, reached up to the overhead bin and took down his carry-on bag. It was the only luggage he had with him: a change of clothes, two books, a spare pair of shoes. Lila’s case was similarly austere.
“Thanks for flying with us,” the stewardess said as he wheeled the case down the aisle to the air gate.
“Thank you,” he said, flashing the puckish smile that he knew put people in mind of Matthew McConaughey.
Their work demanded that he be in and out of a place as quickly as he could. He liked to imagine himself as a businessman, flying in for a conference or a meeting. They flew in, stayed for a day or two, did what they had been paid to do, and then flew out again. Boon was too professional to allow for a distraction. He never allowed anything that might mean that he took his eye off the ball.
He stepped onto the airbridge, the humid wash of the air slapping at him.
“Jesus,” Lila said. “Hot.”
“This is nothing.”
“I know. It’s not Gaza.”
“It is not.”
Lila hadn’t been to the south before. Boon had, several times. There had been jobs here. First with the Mossad and then, latterly, on his own account. It wasn’t his type of place. The climate was brutal, the city—especially since the hurricane—was ugly, and he found the people brash and vulgar. Not much reason to be down here save for the fact that he had a name on his docket and work to be done.
Lila was right, though. It was nothing like Gaza. But there were very few places that were.
Boon looked at the other travellers around him, the other businessmen in town for meetings or conferences or whatever it was that had drawn them here. Business. His was very different from theirs. He didn’t advertise what he did. Secrecy and discretion were his watchwords. Publicity was to be avoided at all costs. It could be fatal. When certain people had a problem, a mess that needed to be cleaned up, and if those people knew who to call—or if they knew people who knew—then maybe, for the right price, Claude Boon could be persuaded to come and do it.
#
BOON HIRED a Chevrolet from Avis and drove to the Hilton. They checked in and showered, and Boon left Lila to relax in front of the big TV while he went down to conduct business in the bar. He had taken a table a full ten minutes before the time he had scheduled for the meeting. Boon liked to be at a rendezvous early. It gave him time to check the place out, get a feel for the lay of the land. If he got a sniff that something was wrong, he would leave. His instincts had been honed to a fine edge from years of use. He had learned to trust them, implicitly, without question. He had cleared out before, many times, but today felt acceptable.
The bar was busy, but not so busy that it would have been easy for someone to observe him without his noticing. It was well lit, lots of space, there were three potential exits to get out onto the street if he needed to make a quick getaway. He knew this part of town reasonably well, and he knew he would be able to disappear if that became necessary. He didn’t relax—he never really relaxed—but he allowed himself the luxury of ordering a coffee and a Danish and then took them to a booth where he could watch everyone in the room.
He recognised Detective Peacock from before. There had been a job for him, two hoods who had raided a poker game that was supposed to be under police protection. He located the men and made an example out of them. Peacock had said that he was impressed. He should have been. It was a clean and efficient job. Not particularly difficult, but Boon treated them all the same. The ones where you relaxed, those were the ones where you ended up with a bullet in your head.
Peacock was with a man in a smart suit, suave, well groomed.
“Detective,” he said.
“Hello, Boon.”
“Who’s your friend?”
“The man I told you about.”
“Dubois.”
“That’s right.”
Peacock sat down and slid around in the booth so that Dubois could sit, too. Peacock was a louse of a man, no morals, bad hygiene, not impressive in any sense, but he had proven to be trustworthy enough, and he had promised that this job would pay enough for it to be worth Boon and Lila’s time. Dubois was a different prospect, assured, confident, even in a situation like this. Often the men who were referred to him were nervous and twitchy, knowing that what they were doing made them, at the very least, accessories to murder. The jobs he had done in some states had been enough for a trip to Death Row. Those guys were thinking about execution, the needle, things that kept them up at night, but this guy was different. He was cool and collected, ordering a coffee in a strong, clear voice, not even the hint of a tremor in his hand as he took the cup and put it to his lip. Solid, in good shape, stiff backed. Tidy, with a neat crew cut. It said ex-military all day long.
Boon was impressed.
Dubois leant forwards, indicating Peacock. “He said that you’d be here, that this was where you wanted to meet. We didn’t see anyone else coming in. Are you careful?”
“I’ve been doing this for years, Mr. Dubois. What do you think?”
“I think I’m not going to get into a business like this with someone I’m not sure I can trust. Peacock vouched for you, but, with all due respect, I hardly know Peacock and he doesn’t strike me as the sort of man in whom I would place the greatest confidence—”
“Hey,” Peacock protested. “Fuck you.”
“—and so you need to persuade me of your bona fides.”
Boon sipped his coffee and replaced the cup, very deliberately, in the saucer. “My bona fides.”
“That you can do what he says you can do.”
“I know what it means, Mr. Dubois. What did he tell you?”
“That you can make problems go away.”
He smiled. “Indeed.”
“You made any problems go away recently?”
Boon wondered how much it would be safe to reveal. He didn’t like to talk about his jobs, and he was certainly not the sort of man who gloated about past glories. Showing off, like all the other bad habits, would get you killed. “My last work was a month ago. There was a union man, in Newark. This man was causing problems for his employer. Provocative statements to the press. Suggestions that he was going to blow the whistle on some dubious business practices. You might have heard of him?”
“I think I read something.”
“He had a heart attack.”
“That was you?”
Boon gave a shallow shrug. “Who knows? But I handle things like that.”
Dubois leant over the table again. “I’m going to be completely honest with you, Mr. Boon. I’m here against my better judgment. With reservations. The last time we hired someone to ‘handle’ something for us, it was against my better judgment, too. And as soon as we were finished with this guy, he went straight to the FBI and started to tell lies like you wouldn’t believe. It’s just a good thing the fellow got cold feet when they brought him before the grand jury. And it cost us a lot of money to make sure his feet got cold, too, I can tell you.”
“There’s handled and then there’s handled,” Boon said. “When I handle something, no one goes to the FBI or to anyone else. You know what I’m saying?”
“I do.”
“And that’s what you want?”
“It is.”
“Alright, then. Just so we’re all copacetic, being careful works both ways. Anyone know where you are?”
“I didn’t see nobody else around here who knows who I am,” Peacock said, keen to reassert himself in the conversation. “We’re fine. No one knows that you’re here.”
Boon sipped his coffee again, turned his attention back to Dubois, put the cup back
in the saucer, and said, “Go on. Tell me what you need.”
“My employer has a problem. A person we need to have removed. Peacock has his picture.”
“This is him,” the cop said, laying a mugshot out on the table.
Boon looked.
He frowned.
He looked again, checking, questioning his first reaction.
He struggled to contain his surprise.
The first thing he noticed was that the man looked relaxed and at ease, even though he had been put in front of a police camera in—he checked on the back of the print—the town of Victoria, Texas, and charged with assault. People not in the life would typically look a little perturbed by the experience, but this guy was relaxed and looked right into the camera as if it was nothing. He was in his forties, short dark hair, icy blue eyes. The mugshot was clipped to a printout, and he scanned it quickly.
“John Smith,” Boon said, reading the details.
“That’s not his name,” Peacock said.
“No,” Boon said. “I know.”
“What do you mean?”
“His name is John Milton.”
“How’d you know that?” Dubois frowned. “You know him?”
“I’m afraid that I do.”
Peacock gestured at the printout. “We couldn’t find—”
“This will be more expensive,” Boon interrupted him. “The price I quoted was for chumps. John Milton isn’t a chump.”
“Who is he?” Dubois said.
“What do you know?”
Peacock took over again. He slid the mugshot back into the envelope. “He’s British. An old soldier, ex-Special Forces. SAS.”
“That’s all you’ve got?”
The detective leant back in the chair. “You say you know him. Why don’t you tell us?”
Boon laced his fingers on the table as he thought about how much to reveal. He couldn’t give them everything because that would give them too much about him, too. He would have to be selective. “Milton used to work for the British government. There’s a clandestine group, completely off the books. They neutralise those who offer a threat to British interests.”
“‘Neutralise?’”
“You know what I mean.”
Peacock was troubled. “So, what? You’re saying that he’s some sort of assassin?”
“The last time I met him, that was exactly what he was. But I haven’t seen him for years.”
“But you recognise him?”
“Milton isn’t the sort of person you forget.”
Dubois was listening with an inscrutable expression on his face.
Boon sipped his coffee. “As I said, it’s going to cost more.”
“How much more?”
Boon’s usual tariff was fifty per job, with a twenty per cent discount for multiples. That was pretty good cash for what was usually a day’s work, but Milton had nothing in common with the patsies and putzes whom Boon and Lila assisted on their way off this mortal coil.
“One hundred.”
Dubois didn’t flinch. “Half now, half on completion.”
“That works.” He finished his coffee and replaced the cup in the saucer. “So why do you want Milton gone? What’s he doing over here?”
“Mr. Dubois’s boss don’t want him around no more.”
Boon frowned. “Mr. Dubois isn’t the patron here?”
Dubois looked over at Peacock, but didn’t answer.
“I have a few rules, Mr. Dubois. The first is that I need to know who I’m working for. If I don’t, I’m getting up and going back to Jersey.”
“He’s—” Peacock started.
“I speak for him.” Dubois spoke over him. “You’ll deal with me.”
“Not good enough. You speak for who?”
He looked reluctant.
“You tell me or I’m out of here. I’m serious.”
“His name is Joel Babineaux.”
Boon had heard of him, or, rather, he had heard of Babineaux Properties. It was a big, respectable construction company listed on the Chicago exchange. It wasn’t a surprise that a company like that had a need for his particular services. It happened often, more than people would have expected. He had worked for bigger companies, internationally known brands. Business could be dirty and unpleasant, even the business conducted by the shinier, brighter Fortune 500 corporations.
“There are some houses being built down in the Lower Ninth,” Peacock said. “After Katrina. This charity—”
“Build It Up? I know about that. Read an article about them on the plane.”
“Yeah,” Peacock said. “Them. Milton is working with them.”
“And you want to get rid of someone building houses for a charity?”
“That’s right. He got involved in business that he has nothing to do with.”
“You’ve spoken to him?”
“No.”
“Mr. Dubois?”
“No.”
“So a little background, please.”
Dubois spread his hands over the table. “We’ve been trying to buy the houses they’ve been building. They won’t sell. We sent two men to frighten them. Milton was there. Put his nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“These two men? Who were they? Guys you found on the street?”
Dubois shrugged.
Boon chuckled. “Let me guess. Milton ate them for breakfast? Broke a few bones, sent them away with a message for you?”
Dubois shifted in his chair, flickering with irritation. “You’d do better, would you?”
Boon just smiled. “Where can I find him?”
“Lower Nine,” Peacock said. “Salvation Row.”
“Salvation Row? Who comes up with that shit?”
Peacock shrugged and tapped the bulge beneath his armpit, where his pistol was holstered. “You said you wanted to get a piece here. You haven’t got anything yet?”
“Not yet. Get me a 9mm. Not from evidence, something off the street. Roll a dealer, something like that. I don’t care how you do it.”
“Easy,” Peacock said.
“That’d normally be enough. But Milton is Milton. I might need something heavier.” He paused, thinking about it. “I’ll let you know about that.”
“Fine.”
“And a car.”
“Sure.”
“And that’s all I need.”
“When can you do it?”
He got up. “You make the down payment, I’ll start today.”
Dubois got up, too. He removed a thick envelope from his pocket and placed it on the table. “Twenty. I’ll get you the other thirty this afternoon. The other fifty when it’s done.”
Boon took the envelope and pocketed it. “That works.”
“You talk a good game, Mr. Boon. But you still haven’t said why I should believe that you can do this.”
Boon paused. These guys were ridiculous. Part of him felt like drilling Dubois in the nose, walking out of the bar and going back to the airport. He didn’t need shit in his life, and he was starting to find this guy a little stuck-up, too smarmy for his own good. But, the money was good and, since he had promised Lila they would use it for a month in Turtle Bay, he took a moment and composed himself and gave him a nice friendly, little smile.
“I’m expensive. You want to know why that is? It’s because I’m the best there is at what I do. I can charge whatever I like, someone’ll pay it. I’m not like the guys you used, the ones who fucked up. I’m not like them at all. I don’t get drunk. I don’t do drugs. When I go after someone, I don’t go after them in a half-assed sort of way. I go after them in a serious, no mistakes, no fucking up kind of way.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I’m a professional. I’ve been doing this for years, Mr. Dubois. I messed up some things in my life, but never that. When I do it, it stays done. Milton’s a dangerous man, but he doesn’t know that I’m coming. That means he doesn’t have a chance. And that you don’t have to worry about it
anymore.”
#
LILA WAS asleep when he got back to the room.
Boon looked at her and felt the familiar surge of intense, all-consuming love. They had been together for three years, and the feelings that they shared had not dulled at all. That, he knew, was remarkable. His married friends in the Kidon, and the older men he had known in the army before that, all of them had grumbled about their domestic arrangements. That was just how it was. That was life. Boon, himself, had come to feel the same way about his first wife. There had been the usual intense first few months before the bloom came off the rose. Familiarity, contempt, all that. That it had not been that way with him and Lila was the source of all the joy in his life. He knew how lucky he was.
Lila had been born and raised in the West Bank town of Hebron. She was twenty-four, a full twenty years Boon’s junior. Her father had two careers, one public and the other private. The first was as a senior Hamas official, just a few steps removed from the leadership. His second was as an Israeli collaborator. It was his information that had led to the successful assassination of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, the co-founder of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. Boon had benefitted from Lila’s father’s perfidy. He was one of the twenty-six Kidon agents who were responsible for his elimination in his Dubai hotel room. A colleague had administered the muscle relaxant, and Boon had smothered the man beneath a pillow.
Lila’s father’s treachery had been uncovered soon after the operation, and he was promptly executed. Lila, her mother and her sister were extracted and resettled in Jerusalem. When she and Boon met, she had been waiting tables. He had immediately fallen for her. Bright blue eyes that sparkled with life and an insouciant attitude that didn’t waver, even when—weeks later—Boon told her about the particular kind of work that he did for his country. He knew enough about her by then to know that honesty was a calculated gamble, but he couldn’t lie. She hated Hamas. She knew the men who had killed her father. Boon killed both of them, then the man who had sent them, and then the man who had sent him. As a demonstration of love, it was particularly effective.
Boon had not been Boon then. His birth name was Avi Bachman. He was still married to his first wife, a wholly unsatisfactory relationship that he maintained for the sake of appearances. The time he spent with Lila was like a long glass of cold water in the desert. She was playful. She made him feel younger. She loved him.