by Michael Kerr
“Do you think he was bluffing about having a crew?” Buck said to Nathan, who was still sitting in the front passenger seat of the Explorer.
“Maybe. But we have to assume that he wasn’t. He’s a loner, so I think it’s more likely that he paid some guy to put the frighteners on my wife and feed her shit about him having some old buddies fly in from New York.”
“So why is he taking the risk of meeting you to collect the money, boss? He could have had you throw it out of a car window anywhere he wanted. Just phoned you and directed you to where he wanted it dumped.”
“He plans to kill me tonight. He’s right in thinking that I fully intend to see him and the waitress dead, and he knows that I wouldn’t rest easy if he walked away with even one dollar bill of mine in his pocket. I’ll consider them both a liability until they’re safely disposed of. Just the thought of Strother Cully and his retard nephew chopping up and feeding them to the gators is giving me a hard on.”
Luther Abner walked along the main drag. The moon cast elongated shadows of the vaults and the crosses and angels that topped them onto the thoroughfare. He kept to the side, so as not to make an easy target, should Logan and perhaps others already be in the cemetery.
Tom Clancy went left; to make his way down a narrower pathway, and his brother went right. The three men unhurriedly checked the spaces between the crypts, fingers on triggers, expecting trouble. They had been given Logan’s description and told that he would be armed and would in all likelihood not hesitate to shoot them.
Clifton Clancy needed a cigarette, and his bladder was pounding. He could not take the chance of lighting up, but stopped at the rear of a ten-foot-high vault and proceeded to take a piss against its wall, his dick in one hand and gun in the other as he looked from side to side, oblivious to the trap that was about to be sprung.
CHAPTER THIRTY
CLIFTON sighed with relief, totally unaware that he was about to become the second victim of what would be a night that added several corpses to the already overcrowded cemetery.
The noose was fashioned from a length of braided nylon rope, which was lowered from directly above him, to drop over his head and loosely encircle his neck.
Logan had been stretched out prone on the flat roof. He had heard the footsteps approach, and then there was silence for a few seconds before the liquid splatter of what he knew to be someone urinating broke the near silence. Rising to his knees, he peered over the edge and saw the man standing below him. Without any hesitation he fed the rope down through his hands, and when it was in place, jerked it with all his considerable arm strength, to tighten the loop and then lean back to haul the figure up off the ground.
Clifton had no idea what had happened, or awareness that he had dropped the gun, and that his flaccid dick was dribbling down his pants leg. He attempted to scream but the crushing pressure to his throat prevented him from making a sound. The force of the rope to his carotid arteries was starving his brain of oxygenated blood, and the toes of his wingtips drummed against the white wall as he raised his hands in a vain attempt to rid himself of whatever was around his neck.
Perhaps if Logan had let go of the rope sooner, then Clifton would have lived, but he could not afford to be charitable in his actions. He was up against armed men that fully intended to kill him. He waited for the sound of leather on plaster–coated concrete to cease and then let go of the rope and lowered himself down to the ground.
Luther heard a knocking; a staccato beat that only lasted a few seconds. It came from a vault to his right, next to the much larger Glapion family crypt, in which it was believed that the renowned voodoo priestess Marie Laveau was interred, and where Logan had told Mr. Cassidy to meet him with the money.
Backing up a few feet, Luther angled across to the side of the vault and stealthily moved around to the front, to find the black railing gate was open, and that the steel shackle on the rusted padlock on the door behind it had been forced.
Was Logan inside?
He moved away from the entrance, transferred the gun he held to his left hand and reached into the side pocket of his jacket for his cell to speed-dial Tom and tell him where he was, and for him to call his brother.
Tom phoned Clifton but it was not accepted.
Clifton was behind the vault, sprawled out, his face a deep purple due to having been hanged. The phone in his inside breast pocket vibrated against a still heart.
Tom made his way to where Luther was and whispered, “I can’t raise Clifton. Something’s wrong.”
“I think Logan is inside the vault,” Luther said. “The door is open, so we’ll go in low and fast. If he starts shooting, we’ll take him out.”
“The boss wants him alive.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“Tell him that we know he’s inside, and if he doesn’t throw his gun out and then follow it with his hands on his head, he gets to be full of holes.”
They took up positions each side of the door. Luther reached out and pushed it open a foot. The hinges squealed: “We know you’re in there Logan,” he said. “If you want to keep breathing, toss your gun and then come out nice and easy with your hands on top of your head.”
Logan had used a short crowbar to force open the shackle on the padlock, and then entered the crypt and placed his rucksack on top of a stone sarcophagus that was one of six inside the small, dank room. He had taken a length of nylon rope from it, which he had purchased along with the crowbar, and then climbed up on to the flat roof and waited. It wasn’t long before a security guard left a small gatehouse and opened the gates to allow two vehicles to enter. The driver of the SUV got up and followed the guard back into the office, and almost immediately there was a bright flare of light that Logan rightly assumed to be muzzle flash from a handgun.
The hunt for him was on. Three men exited a Ford sedan and fanned out to search the cemetery, looking between the vaults as they cautiously advanced along the aisles. The one that had been driving the SUV went back from the office to stand near the open driver’s door and talk to someone inside it. And that someone would be Cassidy.
He had the advantage. Cassidy would still want to locate and kill Ellie, and so would have told his men not to shoot to kill. He had no such restriction and so would exercise extreme prejudice. He firmly believed that in many cases the end did justify the means. He had no qualms about taking the lives of those that were an unwarranted danger to others. To his way of thinking they were no loss.
The drumming of the now dead scumbag’s feet on the wall must have attracted the others to the vault. Making his way along the side of it, he smiled as the partly open door led them to believe that he was inside, trapped, with no option but to do what he was ordered to.
Tom Clancy was holding his breath. He was jumpy, and wondering if Logan would charge out of the door shooting.
Edging around the corner, Logan reached out over the four-foot-high pointed railings and grasped one of the men by the collar of his sports jacket and yanked him backwards and down, for him to lose his footing and fall.
Three of the sharp steel palings pierced his back as he reflexively pulled the trigger of the gun and put two bullets into the night sky.
Luther turned and redirected his aim from the doorway towards the tall man, but was driven backwards as a single shot from Logan’s gun hit him in the hollow of his throat, below his Adam’s apple, to shatter vertebrae and sever his spinal cord before blasting a large hole in the back of his neck. He had less than three seconds to contemplate his death and experience a chilling fear of it before he lost consciousness.
Logan walked around to the small gate and entered the crypt to pick up his rucksack. The only unfinished business left was Cassidy and his driver.
Buck Prowse recognized the sound of bullets being fired through the baffles of silencers. So did Nathan.
“If those stupid fucks have killed Logan, then they’ll wish that they’d never worked for me,” Nathan said.
Buck hu
nkered down behind the car door and drew his gun: “Could be the other way around,” he said. “Maybe he has got a crew with him.”
“Get on the phone to Luther,” Nathan said. “Find out what’s going down.”
There was no answer. Buck had a bad feeling. He knew all about Logan. They weren’t dealing with some wet-behind-the-ears asshole. Logan had seen military service, and then been a cop. You had to recognize and give credit to people with experience and capabilities. Buck was still alive because he had never underestimated others; had always expected to be surprised, and not in a good way. He was a pragmatist, and saw the strengths and weaknesses in those he dealt with. Under extreme duress even the normally meek could find resolve and do the unexpected. Survival-mode is regarded as the strongest of human emotions. States of fear or anxiety signal the brain of imminent risk and trigger defensive responses to deal with anyone or anything that poses a threat.
Logan appeared slowly from deep shadow, approached to approximately fifty feet from the Explorer and stopped. The rucksack hung by its strap from his right shoulder, and his arms were away from his sides with the palms of his hands facing the guy who was now straightening up and holding his gun two-handed, using the top edge of the door to take steady aim.
“I’m unarmed, and the three men that were looking for me are dead,” Logan said in a calm voice. “You’ll have heard the gunshots. I didn’t shoot them, so what does that tell you?”
“Don’t shoot him,” Nathan said from where he was scrunched down low in the passenger seat, peering over the dash to look out through the bottom of the windshield.
Buck said nothing, just stared unblinking at Logan and waited for him to continue.
“Drop the gun,” Logan said. “If you don’t, you’ll be taken out. There’s an ex-marine sniper on the roof of a crypt with you in his crosshairs. I came here for the money, nothing else, so you have to ask yourself, is Cassidy’s hundred grand worth dying for?”
Buck believed what he was being told. No one would approach unarmed and risk being killed. And he had heard the muted shots, so knew by their absence that Luther and the Clancy brothers were history. He could imagine the unseen shooter with his finger on the trigger, ready, willing and able to blow his head off with a high velocity round.
“This isn’t a Mexican stand-off,” Logan said. “If I lower my hands you’ll be dead before you can take a shot.”
Buck couldn’t see a satisfactory option to dropping his gun, so let go of it, for the weapon to clatter to the ground.
“Kick it away from you, and then lay face down, stick your hands in your pants pockets and keep them there,” Logan said. “Get out of the car, Cassidy, with the money, and walk slowly towards me.”
“Okay, whatever you say,” Nathan said as he got out of the passenger door and opened the rear to pick the brown paper grocery bag up by its handles.
“Why don’t I just throw it to you, Logan?” he said as he straightened up. “Or am I right in believing that you intend to do more than just take the money.”
“I’m going to kill you, Cassidy, which is what you had planned for me. You came here tonight thinking that you could make me tell you where the waitress is, and if I had done you’d have murdered us both in cold blood.”
There was movement in the rear of the Explorer, and a figure emerged from it and walked towards Logan with a gun in his hand.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
THE man was tall, even with a stoop caused by a slight curvature of the spine. And there was an expression of amusement in his watery blue eyes: “You’re full of shit, Logan,” he said, making a clacking noise as his loose dentures moved against each other in his mouth. “You haven’t got any shooters with you. I’m calling your bluff. Tell Mr. Cassidy where you’ve stashed the bitch or I’ll start shooting pieces off you.”
“How come I’m not surprised that you’re a corrupt cop, Reynolds?” Logan said. “Is your sidekick Pleshette on Cassidy’s payroll as well?”
Rod advanced to within ten feet and stopped and aimed his backup piece at Logan’s left kneecap: “No,” he said. “For what it’s worth, Lucy is a good but naïve detective. She hasn’t been jaded yet by the thankless task that we do, risking our lives every day for just enough dough to keep us turning up for the next shift.”
“Did you kill LaSalle for the scumbag standing behind you?”
Rod grinned. It was as crooked as he was, and his discolored teeth slipped a little as he said, “Not guilty. I was busy offing Brad Dicky and his wife with this little .22 that I use for special occasions, when LaSalle was being dealt with.”
“Did you―”
“That’s enough stalling, Logan. Where’s the broad?”
“In a motel on …” Logan began, and then dived to the side, drawing the Glock from under his belt and aiming and shooting as he made contact with the ground.
Rod fired, but the bullet went between Logan and the rucksack, which had flown out and away from his shoulder and been enough to spoil Rod’s aim. Reaction time dips the older you get, and moving targets are never easy to hit.
The pain was initially no worse than being stung on the chest by a wasp, but Rod knew that he had taken a bullet as he fell back to sit on his ass with a jolt. He attempted to raise the gun again, only to drop it as another nub of lead drilled into his stomach. He groaned, bent over almost double, hugged his belly, and his bottom denture slipped from his slack mouth and came to rest between his legs.
Buck Prowse made his move and scrabbled across the ground, scurrying like a fast-moving house spider towards where his gun had come to rest.
“Don’t do it,” Logan shouted, but Buck was already curling his fingers around the pistol’s butt.
Two headshots dropped him back face down, for blood to pool from the large exit wounds.
It all happened so quickly that Nathan had stood frozen in place. There was a couple of seconds delay before his already raised adrenaline level spiked and the physiological flight-or-fight response –from what he knew was an immanent harmful event – kicked in.
Dropping the paper bag, Nathan fumbled inside the left front of his jacket for the fancy Taurus 9-millimeter with gold accents and white pearl grips, that was in a holster clipped to his belt.
Logan had got to his knees and swung the silencer-extended barrel of the Glock to take aim at Cassidy, but didn’t shoot. There was still a vestige of morality that prevented him from killing a man that was not armed or in a position that posed a life-threatening danger to him.
Nathan stayed his hand when he saw that he was already targeted. Just let his arms fall to his sides and stared at the big man, who was now climbing to his feet, but at no point let the gun he held drift off target.
“Are you going to shoot an unarmed man?” Nathan said. “This is over, you’ve made your point, and the money is in the bag. Let me go, Logan, I’ve got a wife and two daughters.”
Logan smiled, but there was not a trace of warmth or humor in it: “You’re scum, Cassidy. You have people killed and probably sleep like a baby. All you give a shit about is money. Open your jacket very slowly, and use a finger and thumb to dump the gun I know you’ll be carrying. Or better still, go for broke and try to shoot me.”
Nathan was nobody’s hero. He wanted to live, and so he did exactly as he was told to.
“Now pick up the bag and take another half dozen steps towards me,” Logan said.
Nathan felt as though his legs were full of cement. He found it almost impossible to place one foot in front of the other, but somehow did, and walked towards the man who had become his nemesis with what he thought to be the same abject fear that a death row inmate would be consumed by as he made his last short journey to the execution chamber.
“If you plan on shooting me, do it and get it the fuck over with,” Nathan said with a bravado that belied his state of panic.
Logan was steeling himself to pull the trigger. The muscles in his cheeks ached as he clenched his teeth and summoned up t
he resolve to do away with a man that had no empathy for other peoples lives.
Nathan saw the indecisive look in Logan’s eyes, and that gave him a glimmer of hope. Without hesitation he swung the bag up and let go of it, for it to hit Logan in the face and cause him to pull his head back and blink.
As the wads of bills spilled out to fall and litter the ground, Nathan darted forward with his head down, to butt Logan in the solar plexus and knock the wind out of him.
Logan was bowled over, and as one hand gripped the gun and twisted it free, the other was fisted and driven into his jaw.
Ignoring the pain, Logan used his left hand to punch Cassidy in the ribs with enough force to crack two of them.
Nathan grunted as he was knocked sideways, but managed to grasp the gun and then roll away from Logan to put some space between them. He came up into a sitting position, and decided that he no longer gave a fuck where the waitress was. His only and all-consuming aspiration was to now kill Logan and be done with the stranger that had kept coming after him like the fucking Terminator.
Logan sprang up and lashed out with his right foot as Cassidy brought the gun up to bear on him. The toe of his Timberland fractured the gangster’s cheekbone and displaced his left eye as he fell backwards. The shot from the Glock went high and wide and took the tip of a wing from a concrete angel that looked down with a frozen expression of serenity from the roof of a crypt.
Logan placed the sole of his boot on Cassidy’s wrist and ground it, causing the gun to be released from a now numb hand, and followed up with another savage kick, this time to the man’s temple.
Once more in possession of the gun, Logan watched as Cassidy’s head began to jerk from side to side. He seemed to be suffering some kind of fit, and Logan presumed that the blow he had inflicted had fractured the skull and caused damage to the brain.