The Single Twin

by Sean Little

  “I’m fine, so far. I’m glad you’re safe.”

  “You have an angry daughter who hated having to cancel her night of fun with friends, but she understands. She’s asleep now. Abe, how much danger are we in? Tell me the truth.”

  “None, for the moment. I just wanted you to get out as a precaution. I have no idea where this case is heading or what might happen.”

  Duff leaned over. “Is that Katherine? Did you tell her about The Fucking Embarrassment?”

  “What happened to the car?”

  “The car is toast, Katherine. The guys I wanted you to get away from, they pushed Duff and me into traffic. The Volvo got up close and personal with a pickup truck.”

  “That’s terrible. You and Duff aren’t hurt, though?”

  “Tell her I got an owie.”

  Abe shoved Duff away. “We’re fine. Good, solid Swedish engineering, you know.”

  “They do make a damn fine meatball,” said Duff.

  “When can we come home?”

  “I’ll let you know. Hopefully, soon.”

  “Tell her we’re in the endgame,” said Duff.

  “You sound like a real tool when you call it that,” said Mindy.

  “You’re not the first person to tell me that.”

  Abe waved his hand to try to silence them. “Keep an eye on the news. You’ll know when it’s safe to come home because I’m betting it will be a major story.”

  “How major?”

  “National headlines.”

  “Stay safe, Abe.”

  “I will.” Abe ended the call.

  “That was a bold prediction.” Mindy turned down the road where Duff and Abe’s office was situated. She gestured to the cars along the side of the road with her chin. “You see anything that doesn’t belong?”

  Abe shrugged. “Cars are always changing along here.”

  “Politicians’ cars tend to stick out, don’t they? Wouldn’t that be what they’re driving?”

  Duff shook his head. “Could be anything at this point. Who knows what Tasker drives? They might have been dropped off. They might not even be here. Or, conversely, we might be walking into an ambush.”

  “I’m not a fan of that idea.” The gun at Abe’s back felt strangely warm on his skin.

  Mindy angled her car into a spot, parallel parking with an expertise neither Duff nor Abe had ever come close to approximating. “They know you know, right? They know I know or was close to knowing. They have to think you probably told the cops. What can they do now? It was one thing when it was just some rogue ex-operative stumbling through searches. Now, there’s a wider net. They have to realize everything is coming to a head and they’re not going to be able to cover it up forever.”

  “You’d be surprised,” said Duff. “Need I remind you about Roswell?”

  Abe ignored his partner. “That would be the hope, but you never know. Cover and deny is an art form and I’m betting Kimberly Stevens and Ron Tasker are excellent at it.”

  “You know the real kicker in all this?” Mindy shut off her car. She looked sad. “If they had just come up to me and explained the situation, I probably would have stopped looking, maybe even kept all their secrets. Thirty-five years is a long time.”

  “Even if there was a murder?” said Abe.

  Mindy considered it. “Maybe not then.”

  The taqueria was still open. Somewhere around four in the morning, they switched to breakfast tacos made with eggs and sausage and spicy salsa. The smell of the chorizo and breakfast sausage cooking for the morning meals was cutting through the night air.

  “You know they’re up there, right?” Duff blew a breath through pursed lips. “They’ve got guns, too.”

  “I assumed so, yes.” Abe put his hands on his hips. He tried to strike a superhero pose to feign confidence, but he was nervous.

  “Only thing to do is go up there, you know.”

  “Yep.” Abe’s feet felt like cement blocks.

  “That’s the only way we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  “Yep.” Abe could not find the strength to take a step.

  “They’re probably watching us this very second, aren’t they? Probably listening to every word we say.”

  “Most definitely.” Abe glanced up at the one window in the apartment which overlooked the street. It was the small window in the bathroom. It was dark, but that meant nothing. If he had broken into someone’s apartment to surprise them with a gun he would not have turned on a light, either.

  “Maybe Mindy should stay in her car,” said Duff. “If they’re waiting in our office, then she could get away if bullets start flying.”

  Abe knew Duff was right. He turned to face Mindy. “You know the story. You know what we know. If you hear a gunshot, take off for the nearest police department. When you get there, demand to speak to Detective Malcolm Betts. Tell whoever is at the desk it’s about the Davies murder.”

  Mindy looked as if she was about to argue, but Duff intervened. “Hey, this is why you’re paying us money, right? Doesn’t do any of us any good if all three of us die.”

  “How about if I just hang back a few feet and play it by ear?”

  “The car would be safer.” Abe did not want to admit he’d rather wait in the car, too. “Maybe we should just all go to the car and wait for daylight.”

  “How is getting shot in daylight better than getting shot at three in the morning?” Duff spat on the sidewalk and shouldered past Abe. “You two wait down here. I’ll go up alone.”

  “Duff—” Abe started to stop him, but Duff plowed forward and didn’t look back.

  “You got a kid, Abe. I don’t. Just do me a favor: go into my computer and delete my browser history if I die. Bookmarks, too.” Duff unwound the length of ace bandage covering his arm and dropped it. He peeled the tape and gauze from his face and dropped them, too.

  “I’ll do that.”

  “If you hear gunshots, you turn and run, right?”

  Abe nodded.

  Duff stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “Oh, did I ever tell you I really wanted to be in the Navy?”

  Abe froze. Was this the setup for a joke? “No. You never mentioned it.”

  “I always thought it would be cool as hell to be on a submarine. I wanted to be the guy who looked in the periscope.” Duff disappeared into the stairwell.

  Abe let him go. He was torn between loyalty to Duff and loyalty to his daughter. If someone had to die between him and Duff, Abe knew it should be Duff. Even Duff knew it should be Duff. Katherine and Tilda would have said the same thing. It was just hard to watch a friend walk into a potential lion’s den of a situation and know you should have stopped him.

  “It’s not like the movies, is it?” Mindy watched Duff walk into the darkness of the stairwell.

  “What?”

  She nodded toward Duff. “It’s never like the movies. You feel like you should do something heroic because that’s what the movies always show us, but when it comes down to it, that’s the last thing any of us ever feel like doing.”

  “Oh, I never feel like I should do something heroic. That’s how you get shot.”

  “But, Duff is okay getting shot?”

  Abe sighed. “Sometimes, I think Duff would be happier if he did get shot.” Abe walked up and collected the Ace bandage. He would need it.

  “What was all that about the Navy?”

  “It was a code. Duff was telling me what he needed me to do for him.”

  DUFF DID NOT bother to pretend to be cautious. He tromped up the stairs with steps as heavy as his three-bill frame could produce. His shoes slapped the plastic safety covering for the stairs and rang out shattering the night’s quiet. He jingled his keys. He pulled his Walther from its holster and held it by the barrel like he was going to pistol-whip someone with the handle.

  At no point in the ascent did Duff think he would actually die, at least not at first. He did not anticipate a bullet winging out of the darkness or something slashing hi
s throat. He felt like they would want to know exactly what he knew and who he told. They would have to talk to him first.

  Duff tried the doorknob. It was locked. He jammed his key in the lock, took a breath, and turned the key and opened the door in one smooth motion. The door swung inward, banged against the wall, and closed in his face. No one shot at him, so Duff figured it was a good sign. He opened the door again and stepped inside.

  The silhouette of a man at Abe’s desk was evident in the gray light from the alley-facing windows of the apartment. Duff stepped into the doorway, making sure the man at the desk could see his gun was angled up. Duff changed his grip and held the end of the barrel between his thumb and forefinger to show he had no intention of using it. “Would you be Mr. Lafferty or Mr. Tasker?”

  The banker’s lamp on Abe’s desk flared to life. The face of Ron Tasker was illuminated. There was a Colt handgun on Abe’s desk in front of him. Tasker inclined his head in greeting. “I’m Mr. Tasker. That is Mr. Lafferty.” He pointed to the corner of the room where Lafferty was holding a gun of his own on Duff. “Would you be Mr. Allard or Mr. Duffy?” There was coolness to Tasker’s voice that worried Duff. There was no hostility or animosity; it was flat and even, almost monotone.

  “C.S. Duffy. Call me Duff.”

  “Thank you, Duff.” Tasker gestured at the chairs in front of the desks. “Please, have a seat. Get comfortable. We have a lot to talk about. Where’s your friend?”

  “He went to the police. Like he should.”

  Tasker appraised Duff carefully. “Shame. Something tells me you’re lying about that.”

  “You would lose at poker, then.”

  Lafferty stepped forward and disarmed Duff. The gun he’d been holding on Duff pointed to the floor, but it stayed in his hand. He also reached into Duff’s front pocket and pulled Duff’s cell phone. He made sure it wasn’t recording and put it in his own pocket.

  “Does anything we have to discuss involve your insurance company? I think Allstate is going to ding your monthly after you have to pay for my buddy’s Volvo.”

  Tasked chuckled. “My initial plan was to hope the traffic would take care of you, but I knew once you survived we were a little screwed.”

  “You were screwed once you tried to cover up a baby’s death in 1983.”

  Tasker did not flinch. His eyes darted to Lafferty for a split-second, and then back to Duff. “It appears you are better detectives than I would have given you credit. How much do you know?”

  “Most of it. We don’t have a body or hard evidence, but if we did you’d already be on the front page of the Chicago Tribune.”

  “And who have you told?”

  “Abe, Mindy Jefferson, a few detectives in the C.P.D. whom we work with on occasion, a couple of reporters for some local papers. You know, the usual.” Duff was a good poker player. He was an accomplished liar. He folded his hands across his stomach and tried to play cool. It worked; Tasker bought it.

  Tasker leaned forward and rubbed his hands over his face. “Thirty-five years. Can you believe it? I guess everything ends.”

  Lafferty walked to the other seat opposite the desk. He sat heavily, wincing in pain as he did. “We did our best.” His voice was ragged and thin. He was a man down to the last few grains in his hourglass. He leaned over and handed Duff’s Walther to Tasker.

  “Nice gun, Mr. Bond.” Tasker admired the Walther. “I have one just like it.”

  “Oh, yeah? What’s your favorite movie in the franchise?”

  “Dr. No, of course.”

  “I like the one with the New Orleans funeral in the beginning.” Lafferty pronounced the city’s name as Nawlins.

  “That was Live and Let Die.” Duff kicked back in the chair. “A classic.”

  Tasker looked over at Lafferty. “You ready, my friend?”

  Lafferty dabbed sweat from his forehead. He was still wearing a dark suit he had probably worn to the fundraiser. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “Ready for what?” asked Duff.

  Tasker leveled Duff’s Walther at Lafferty’s chest.

  “Hey, hey! Wait!” Duff leapt out of his chair and stepped between Tasker and Lafferty. “What are you doing?”

  Tasker gave Duff a look that clearly asked if he was stupid. “Don’t tell me you can’t figure it out.”

  “Of course I can figure it out. I’m a lonely misanthrope with a genius-level I.Q. and a complex for solving puzzles. It’s almost a guarantee I figure shit out. That’s like the trade-off for never getting invited to college sorority lingerie parties.”

  Tasker leaned back in Abe’s chair, an amused smile playing on his lips. “Then why don’t you tell me what I’m doing, Mr. Genius-Level-I.Q.”

  Duff walked over to the fridge in the little kitchen. He pulled out a diet Coke. “Hot in here. You guys want one?” After not getting a response, he took out a single can and cracked it open. He took a long pull and sighed with relief. “I hate the heat almost as much as I hate the cold, am I right?” Duff moved to the window next to kitchen and opened it. “The alleyway creates a decent wind tunnel at night. Get some good air through this window to cool this place down at night.”

  “You’re stalling.”

  “Not stalling, Mr. Ron Tasker. Just don’t want to see you shoot Mr. Uriah Lafferty in my home just to discredit everything Abe and I learned in a surprisingly short time.”

  “Tell me, then. Tell me—tell us—what you know.” Tasker put the gun down on the desk in front of him. He laced his fingers behind his head and rocked back in the chair.

  “I know you and Mr. Lafferty took a male baby from a Baltimore-area hospital without processing it through proper adoption procedures. I know you did it most likely because the real Marcus Stevens died as a baby. At first, I thought it was because the senator shook it or something, but now I think Mrs. Stevens did it and you two covered for her so her husband could maintain his newly-won elected seat so you could feed off that sweet, sweet Washington tit for a few years, am I right? Can’t blame you. Couple of years in D.C. can set a man up for a lifetime. If our places were reversed, I might have done the same thing. Why work for your money when you can be the ultimate welfare queen, right?”

  Tasker said nothing. He twirled his index finger in a slow circle. “Continue. I admire your ability to spin a yarn.”

  “You should see me do karaoke.”

  “I’ll pass. Do go on.”

  Duff took another pull on the Coke. He belched loudly. “You did things right at first. You paid off the mother you took the baby from. It kept her quiet. You were trying to do as minimal illegal activity as possible. Because it was the kind thing to do, perhaps an attempt at trying to balance out karma, you kept tabs on the other baby, too. Probably got her into a decent school, fast-tracked her for officer candidate school. You were doing everything right. However, you did not account for the young mother losing her capacity to keep secrets when she was dying of cancer. She told her daughter, the sister of the baby you took, and the daughter worked for the military. You probably didn’t even know she knew until she started trying to find out, right?”

  Neither Tasker nor Lafferty said anything. They both stared at Duff with solemn expressions.

  Duff forged ahead. “Once she started seeking the truth, you knew you needed to take her out, didn’t you? It’s an election year, after all. Scandal like this will cost the Dems a seat at the table. Even worse than that: your gravy train will dry up faster than a sponge in the Sahara. She had to get put down. Unfortunately for you, she’s smarter than you and faster than you. She outplayed you. You probably sent the Davies kid to her apartment to kill her, make it look like a burglary gone wrong or something. When he comes out and tells you there’s no joy in Mudville, you cap him.”

  Tasker yawned. Duff didn’t know if it was a fake yawn or a real yawn. He could have been play-acting to throw Duff off, but it was also past three in the morning.

  “Mindy Jefferson brought Abe and me into this case t
o figure out what she couldn’t. Lucky for her, unlucky for you. You can’t really kill us, now. There are too many people who would know what to look for at this point. Killing all of us would get ugly. So, you have to take the other road at this point: Mr. Lafferty has metastatic prostate cancer. Doctors probably gave you what? Maybe six months left, tops? Maybe three? You’re probably sick, weak, and sore. You’re ready to go. You kill Mr. Lafferty here with my gun, make it look like I did it, and then use it to discredit me and make me seem insane. I’m sure you’ve done your research on me and Duff. You know I have a sketchy past. Hell, I wouldn’t even be surprised if you used your congressional access to unseal my court records to find out about my time at Bensonhurst. Once you throw that in front of the American public, man, it’ll be easy to discredit me. I’m a certified looney, right?” Duff paused. “That about do it, boss? How close am I?”

  Tasker nodded his head a few times as if assessing the data Duff had just junk-piled onto him. “Not too shabby, Mr. Duffy.”

  “Duff, please. I mean, if you’re going to murder someone in my house and blame it on me, we should be on a nickname basis, right? Otherwise it’s like a bad passage in a Thomas Harris novel. You call me Duff and I’ll call you Ronnie.” He turned to Lafferty. “I’m gonna call you ‘The Big U.’”

  “The one thing you’re forgotten, Duff, is your two friends are still outside.”

  “They’re gone. I sent them away.”

  “I doubt that. I’m going to have to kill them. No doubt, when they hear the gunshots, they’re going to bust up here like stupid heroes with guns blazing, but they’re going to get themselves shot, too. I’ll be waiting for them.”

  “How are you going to stop me from stopping you?”

  “I’m going to shoot you in the knee. It will be extremely painful for you, and I’ll look like the hero who stopped the crazy man who also shot his friends. That’s a win-win scenario”

  Duff’s eyebrows arched high on his forehead. “Damn. That’s a good plan, actually.”

  “I’m ready to die.” Lafferty pulled his own gun and handed it to Tasker. “Tell Kimmy I loved her. And hug the boy for me.”

  Tasker stood up and clasped Lafferty’s hand. “I will, old friend. We had a good run.” The two men embraced like the oldest of friends. Like war buddies, Duff realized.