"Louie Rayburn was her pimp, but more than that. He owned the trailer. Several others in that trailer park, too. He would come around early in the morning, every morning, to collect whatever money she made. I don't know if she got to keep a little, like whatever she got for selling me, maybe. Or maybe it all went to Louie for drugs and rent and groceries. He would take her and a few other women away in his car every so often, and she would come back with bags from the grocery store. Louie brought her drugs each morning when he came to collect from her.
"As I got older, more of the men were interested in me. Some of them would come just to…" Mary shook her head and wiped at the tears running down her cheeks.
"She would get angry with me about that, call me a shameless little slut sometimes, like she was jealous. Other times, she beat me if I didn't come on to them and let them… Well, you get the picture. There was this one guy, a friend of Louie's. Anyhow, he had a special thing for me, and he liked…uh… He did things that hurt me. He was a sick bastard. Even as a kid I knew that.
"As I got older, I figured out I was better off staying the hell away from the trailer and taking my chances on the streets. I spent as little time as possible at my mother's, but I had nowhere else to go, really. I was maybe 12 years old when I came back and found her dead. I didn't know what to do. I called the cops. And I've told you about most of what happened after that."
She went into the bathroom and I heard her blowing her nose, and splashing water in the sink. On her way back to the chair, she picked up the coffee pot and refilled our cups. She sat down and took a sip of coffee.
Locking eyes with me, she said, "Okay, you've got the background. Fast forward to my arrival in Miami two weeks ago. I spotted Louie in the arrivals area, hustling this lost-looking young girl. She was dressed neatly, but a little ragged-looking, with an oversized backpack. I got close enough to listen to his spiel. She was broke and looking for help. You can guess what he was doing. In the end, it turned out she was too smart for him. That one got away, but I kept an eye on Louie. He was meeting flights that came from the places that college kids go when they're bumming around on their gap years, or whatever."
"It pissed me off that he was doing that. I've wanted to repay him for my lost childhood for a long time. So I changed clothes in a ladies' room, dressed myself to look like a college girl bumming around, and dropped the duffle bag at a baggage-hold booth. I took my backpack and went hunting. I figured that after 12 years, he wouldn't recognize me, and I was right."
Taking another sip of coffee, she continued her story. "I let him pick me up — gave him the same kind of sob story the other girl did. He bought it. Took me back to his place and fed me, let me get some rest. After a couple of days, he told me it was time for me to repay the favors. He wanted me to meet this 'friend' of his. He gave me hooker clothes to wear, in case I was too slow to figure out what he was planning. We got in this stretch Hummer with three of his goons and swung by an apartment in South Beach. One of the goons went inside and came back with two other girls. The Hummer dropped us off at the Pink Parrot. That's when I spotted you watching the place. What were you doing there?"
"Staking it out. I was working a target for Phorcys. We knew the guy hung out there."
"Who?"
"I'll tell you about my adventures later. Finish your story."
She grimaced and nodded. "Okay. We went inside, and Louie's friend was at a table with two young guys. The friend was an up-and-coming politician. Louie told me if I hooked up with him, it could set me up for the long haul. I figured that was bullshit, but I played along, because I recognized the guy. He was the jerk who liked to sodomize me when I was a kid." She paused and looked up at me.
"But he didn't recognize you?"
"No. My appearance changed when I went through puberty, Finn. I was a skinny little waif back then. For all I knew, this perverted piece of shit wouldn't even go for an adult female. But I did have the advantage of knowing what his kinks were, so I could play him all right. He made a date with me for the next night at his office. By then, the other two girls were hooked up with the two young guys, so we left them there.
"Louie and his three trained gorillas took me back to his place. On the way, they told me all about how they would make sure I was properly 'broken in' for my big date the next evening. Gave me a lot of graphic detail about what it would take to please the guy, and how they would make sure I was all 'loosened up' for him. Jerks."
"So you went back to Louie's place. Then what?"
"I let them push me around until we were inside. While the four of them were shoving me back and forth and groping me, I got a gun away from one of them and kneecapped Louie. Then I killed the others and tied Louie to a chair. I worked on him for a little while; I wanted more information about my date for the next night."
She stopped and looked me in the eye for a few seconds. "You must have picked that up from the news; it was all they talked about that morning."
I nodded. "Yes, sure. What did you learn from Louie about the other guy?"
"He was Louie's supplier from way back. Connected to a Colombian cartel forever and paying off all kinds of people. I wouldn't be surprised if he was on O'Hanlon's list; he was the kind of person Phorcys would have tagged for us. Kyle Brandon was his name. His death made the news, too. Did you see any of that?"
"I've been out of the country for a few days," I said. "I didn't get much local news from the States. What happened?"
"He gave me his card at the Pink Parrot and told me to call him at around 5:30 to make sure he was alone in his office. I did, and when I got there, he let me in. I put the moves on him big time, convinced him to let me tie him up in his big leather swivel chair. Then I fixed him up with a Colombian necktie. While he was dying, I told him who I was. But I don't think the son of a bitch even remembered the little girl in the trailer."
"Anything else you need to tell me?"
"What more could I tell you?"
"I don't know; it's your story. Whatever you think I should know, I guess."
"There's not really any more, Finn. Unless you want the gory details of what my mother's johns did to me."
"I don't need that. But I'll listen, if you need to tell me."
She looked at me for a moment, collecting her thoughts. "No, I don't need to. I have to live with all the sick stuff I did, but you don't."
She put her face in her hands and sobbed. I got up and moved closer, dropping to my knees next to her chair. I put my arms around her and gave her a squeeze. She leaned against me, still crying. I patted her back and stroked her shoulder.
"Mary?" I asked, when she calmed a bit.
"It's okay, Finn. I know it's disgusting. I don't blame you."
"Don't blame me for what?"
"For wanting to ditch me."
"I don't want to ditch you. Don't do that to yourself."
"But I'm… I let them…"
"You were a child, Mary. Don't blame yourself for things you couldn't control."
"But maybe if I had — "
I gave her a gentle shake. "Stop it, now. Put it behind you. It's all in the past. We can't change the past, and you mustn't let it ruin our future."
"Our future?" she asked. "After all that, we have a future?"
"I sure hope so. If not, you'll break an old man's heart."
"You're not so old, Finn. You sure about this?"
"Yep. Never been more sure of anything in my life."
Mary wept freely and collapsed against my chest. I let her cry herself out. When she calmed down, I said, "There is one thing that worries me, though."
She pulled away, sitting up straight, frowning at me. "What?"
"Where do you stand with Phorcys?"
"I told you I squared this with them. Why do you ask? Have they…"
"I haven't talked to anybody there in a few days, but before I left on my last mission, Aaron said you still hadn't checked in; he kept asking me if you had been in touch with me since you got to
Miami."
"Oh. He may know by now. Maybe not the details, but he'll know I'm still part of the team."
"Who did you talk with? Mike?"
She shook her head. "No. My uncle. I figured if anybody would understand, he would."
I forgot about that. Mary's uncle, Bob Lawson, her mother's older brother, was one of the founders of Phorcys, along with Mike Killington. Lawson was also the man who recruited me to work as part of his special projects team within the Department of Defense over 20 years ago. He tried to help Mary's mother get free of her demons, although she shut him out for whatever reason. Mary and I suspected that Lawson was behind hiring her to work for Phorcys, after she established herself as a freelance assassin.
"I'm not sure what he's told Aaron and Mike," Mary said. "By now, though, I'm sure he's let them know I'm still in the fold. I last talked with him the morning after I killed Brandon."
"What did you tell him about Rayburn and Brandon?"
"Just that I ran across two of the men who ruined my mother's life — and mine. I told him I needed to take the time to sort them out before I lost track of them."
"You didn't tell him who they were?"
"No. He didn't ask. Why?"
"When I saw you at the Pink Parrot, I was there on a stakeout, looking for my next assigned target."
"You said that. So?"
"So, my target was Kyle Brandon," I said. "You were right about him being on O'Hanlon's list."
"Then I saved you some work. Did you take credit for the hit?"
I chuckled. "No, Mary. I didn't. It doesn't pay to lie to people like Mike Killington and Bob Lawson."
"No, I agree. Now it's your turn to tell your story, though. What have you been up to while we were apart?"
"Well, I've been busy, but first, I want to compliment you on the Rayburn hit."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I got Aaron to run the plates on the Hummer when I saw you get out of it. It was registered to Rayburn. Then I saw the news the next morning. It didn't take much thought to put the pieces together, especially when I heard about the hooker with the slit skirt on the news."
"You didn't tell him, did you? About me, I mean."
"No. Just about a guy who looked like a pimp taking three hookers into the club. I had a hunch that Brandon was already in there — don't know why I thought that. Rayburn made a big splash, so I wanted to know who he was. Besides, you were hanging out with him."
"Yeah, but now you know why."
"Yes, and you should know you did a first-rate job on Rayburn and his friends."
"Thanks, but I didn't get away as clean as I wanted to. You saw the news. That old bat who kept ranting about the slit in my skirt worried me. I don't know how she saw all of that. Maybe a security camera on the door of her unit. I was wearing a wig, but still…"
"Don't worry. You covered your tracks well. The cops put together a murder/suicide story based on the forensics. They figured the woman was full of shit, maybe making stuff up based on other times she saw Louie taking girls to his place. She was a chronic complainer, according to them. "
"I never got that from the news. What are you basing that on?"
"When Aaron told me who owned the Hummer, he mentioned that Rayburn was a political consultant. Since I was after Brandon and he was a politician, Aaron did more checking. He has a source inside the Pink Parrot. He got a rundown on the meeting between Rayburn and Brandon and the three hookers, including Brandon slipping you a note."
"You said you didn't tell Aaron I was involved."
"I didn't. You were described as the girl with the auburn hair. But I saw you get out of the Hummer, remember?"
"Right. Okay. Then what?"
"Then Aaron wanted to know more about the Rayburn hit. He got hold of the cops' murder book. You didn't leave any trace evidence, and they bought your setup. The only loose end was that they couldn't figure out why the one bodyguard who killed everybody tortured Rayburn. It didn't make sense, unless it was for revenge. He didn't do it for information, obviously, since he blew his own brains out right after he killed Rayburn."
Mary smiled. "Yeah, I worried about that. I wanted to pick Louie's brain about what to expect with Brandon. And just between you and me, maybe I enjoyed hearing the little shit screaming into the pillow while I crushed his fingers. I know that's not professional, but it was satisfying all the same. So the cops were right, in a way. Revenge was one motive for the torture."
"Fair enough," I said. "While we're still talking about you and Rayburn and Brandon, I was watching Brandon's campaign headquarters that night."
I told Mary about watching him close up shop and take a phone call before she showed up.
"That would have been my call," she said.
"I guessed that. Great disguise, by the way. I didn't know you were so good at that."
"Thanks. I minored in theater while I was getting my accounting degree. It comes in handy."
"Yeah, I can see that. I wouldn't have recognized you, except I suspected it might be you. The coincidence was too strong to overlook."
"What did you do, after he closed the blinds?"
"I waited. At that point, I didn't know for sure it was you. That was before I got the details on the Rayburn hit from Aaron, and from a distance, I didn't recognize you."
"But what about the coincidence?"
"I only discovered the coincidence later. I saw you take a négligée out of your briefcase, but I figured you and Brandon were just messing around on the side, or something."
"So you waited. How long?"
"Well, I was planning to kill him in his office, if I could get him alone there. I didn't see you come out, though. I waited maybe 10 minutes, I guess."
"And then what?" she asked.
"I caught a glimpse of you as you drove past me; I was in a car parked across the street from his office. I figured you must have left by a back door, so I went looking in the alley. I still didn't know it was you, though. When I found the door unlocked and got inside, I found him in his office. That's when everything fell into place for me."
"Shit," Mary said.
"What's wrong?"
"I didn't pick up on the surveillance. Good thing it was you and not a cop."
"Yeah, I guess. But a cop wouldn't have made the connections I did — wouldn't have had enough background."
"Maybe. I'm still disappointed in myself."
"It was a good, clean hit, Mary. Lighten up. And you know what's ironic?"
She shook her head. "What?"
"The Colombian necktie."
"Why is that ironic?"
"Because that was one option I considered for him, to make it look drug-related. But then I decided to make it look like a bungled burglary. I figured that would raise fewer questions."
That brought a smile to her face. "Great minds, and all that," she said. "Now, what have you done since you got to Miami besides spy on me? You said you were out of the country for a few days."
"Yes. I'll tell you all about it, but can we go get breakfast first? I missed dinner last night."
Given that Mary and I needed a place where we could talk, we drove to South Beach and parked near Lincoln Road Mall. We strolled along until we spotted an upscale restaurant that wasn't crowded, and asked for a secluded table. The waiter brought us a pot of coffee and took our orders.
"Have you kept up with the national news?" I asked, as Mary stirred her coffee?"
"More or less. Why?"
"Did you hear about the Secretary of Defense?"
"His heart attack?" she asked.
"That's the official word," I said.
"Was it something else?"
"You have to wonder. I mean, the news didn't mention it, but my whole chain of command got wiped out, starting with Nora. Or Phyllis — whatever her real name was."
Nora was my boss before Mary and I killed her. We were plotting to kill Nora's boss, a Deputy Secretary of Defense, when somebody beat us to him.
&n
bsp; "There's not much of a pattern, Finn. Nora disappeared. Looks like the Russian Mafia got her boss. What I saw in the news was that the Secretary of Defense died in his sleep at his place near here. A woman on his staff showed up the next morning with some documents for him, and his Secret Service detail went to his bedroom to check on him. They thought he was sleeping in."
"Yeah, that was the story they fed the press, I guess. That's mostly right. Rumor has it that the woman who found him left him in bed asleep while she went to the bathroom. When she came back he was dead — cardiac arrest."
"Rumor, huh? Any reason to put your faith in that?" She smiled.
"It fits the facts as I know them."
"Okay. I wondered about that when I heard it. Potassium chloride?"
"Fits the facts," I said.
"And then you were watching the Pink Parrot for Brandon when you saw me. Was Rayburn somebody you were expecting?"
"Nope. Just Brandon. But I did ask Aaron to do a full workup on Rayburn. The last time I talked to him, he just had some basic info on him."
"You said you were out of the country for the last few days. Where?"
"The Bahamas," I said, pausing to let the waiter serve our breakfasts.
Once he refilled our coffee cups and left us alone, I resumed.
"I bought a little boat and took a sail. Round trip to Eleuthera."
"What took you there?"
"I wanted to meet a guy named John Hawkins. But he died about the time I got there, so I anchored for a few hours and came back."
"Still have the boat?"
"It sank in the Gulf Stream not far off Miami. I made it ashore in the dinghy."
"You've been busy. Did you miss me?"
"You know I did. I was worried about you."
"I'm sorry, Finn. Forgive me?"
"Of course. I understand how things like that go. I'm glad you're back with me."
"Me, too. What's next?"
"I need to check in with Aaron and let him know about Hawkins."
"You don't think he's heard? Wouldn't the news have picked that up?"
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