by Brian Drake
The voices over the headset continued their conversation. Somebody asked “Ace” when they’d distribute the guns. “Ace” told him the following night. Two more men emerged from the warehouse. Wolf assumed the tall blond in a leather jacket was “Ace” since he gave the others instructions, then turned and walked around the corner.
It took about an hour for the gang to unload the truck. Then the man in dark clothes jumped into the truck and drove away. Two others pulled down the rolling door and secured a padlock. The tall blond, in a green SUV, pulled around the corner, gave orders, and drove away. The remaining pair stayed on the sidewalk, lit cigarettes and started talking. Wolf kept the headphones over his ears. When the pair finished their smokes, they entered the warehouse through an alcove door, and Wolf listened to them talking about what was on television.
Wolf waited until dark and made his way up a dark stairwell to the roof.
Wolf wished he could jump across to the warehouse like Spiderman, but he’d have to settle for the terrestrial alternative. He took off at a run, hopping from roof to roof, running parallel to the street below. He ran about a block and a half. A fire escape provided access to an alley, and Wolf dashed across the empty street to the alley opposite. He climbed another fire escape, reached the top of the next building, and ran back along the block toward the target warehouse roof. At the neighboring roof, he jumped, clearing the distance from the edge to the lower warehouse roof in a flash. He landed hard and felt the shock run up his legs.
A skylight occupied the middle of the roof. Wolf knelt at the edge of the skylight, catching his breath. No lights below, nothing to see. Wolf dashed to an air duct where, earlier, he’d tied a nylon rope. He uncoiled the rope, stepped over the edge, and took baby steps down the wall to a still-unlocked window. He’d earlier used the unguarded entry point when he slipped in to plant the bugs. Hanging by the rope, the weight of his body getting heavier by the second, Wolf reached down and wedged his fingers under the metal window frame. Despite the cold, Wolf’s body temperature increased steadily, sweat trickling down his neck.
Wolf raised the window. The hinge across the top squeaked. He put one leg, then the other, through the open window, grabbing the sill to stabilize his body as he slid into the dark room. He turned on a pen flash. Floating dust made the beam look like a laser ray. He followed a path through stacked office equipment to a door, opened the door and stepped onto a cement walkway overlooking the main floor. Wolf put away the pen flash and his eyes adjusted to the low light. From somewhere he heard laughing and the unmistakable voice of Homer Simpson. So much for security. Wolf headed toward the back of the building and descended on metal steps to the concrete floor. The crates, dark shapes amidst shadows, lay beyond. He reached one of the crates, felt around the top and sides. Still sealed. The crate next door had been opened. He peeked. M-16A2 assault rifles and a few M-4 carbines were packed in straw. The sharp scent of gun oil tickled Wolf’s nose. Confirmation. Now he could go to step two and cause enough havoc to snatch “Ace” for interrogation.
With the laughter of the two watchmen fading behind him, he left the warehouse the way he’d arrived.
Back in the abandoned building, Wolf removed his coat and found a PowerBar in his kit bag. He sat near the window and ate while listening to whatever night sounds filtered through. A car horn, crickets. The city’s heartbeat had slowed.
Wolf chewed a bite and looked around the empty floor. He’d spent so much of his life hiding in places like this, usually with a team, waiting to ambush an enemy, that he wondered if he’d ever kick the habit. This wasn’t the life he would have chosen for himself, but when a thug murdered his sister, he didn’t know how else to respond except to stand over her grave, promise vengeance, and go after the killer with a gun in each hand.
He kept his guns because there were other victims like Shelly who had no voice, and Wolf figured if he had the ability, he should be their voice. He hadn’t been able to save her, but he could save others. The mental and physical toll he felt was palpable, however. Wolf was kidding himself that he could continue for long. And he didn’t like that John Callaway, or his daughter Kiki, put their own lives in jeopardy to help him.
The alliance had been Callaway’s idea. After avenging Shelly, Wolf was content to move on with his life as best as he could. His parents were already gone; so was Shelly; there was nothing to do but try and start a new life.
But in the quiet of the night, he could hear her calling to him, urging him to continue helping others.
Wolf finished the PowerBar and discarded the wrapper. It was all for nothing, he knew. The bad guys never stopped, no matter how many bullets a good guy fired. There would be more Shellys that he wouldn’t be able to save, no doubt.
He’d try, though. He owed his sister that.
“You better eat more than a couple bites,” Sheila said.
Her husband started to smile but the corners of his mouth resisted. Sheila had fixed chicken and spaghetti, but Freddie had no appetite. She’d made the dinner the way he liked, heavy on the meat sauce, chicken lightly breaded.
Tonight was the night. He’d called in sick, and Sheila had no idea of the change in routine.
“Did Art take back his offer?” she said. “You haven’t said much tonight.”
Freddie shook his head.
“If you say one word about money or the baby,” she said, “I’ll scream because your attitude is really starting to piss me off.”
“Tired, sweetie,” he said. “Didn’t sleep well.”
Her eyes didn’t soften. “I don’t believe you.”
He twirled some spaghetti around the fork. His eyes stayed on his plate. Maybe he’d blow off O’Shea and just go into work, tell them he felt better. But then O’Shea would come looking for him. He’d made his decision. No turning back.
Sheila gasped, put both hands to her belly. Freddie jerked wide eyes to hers.
“I think the baby just kicked,” she said, tearing up. She wiped her eyes, felt her belly again. “Oh, wow.”
She rose from her chair. He pulled her close, ear to her belly. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine the life growing inside her. Her fingers scratched the top of his head. Freddie swallowed and a hollow space opened deep in his chest. His mind’s eye showed him nothing. Just darkness.
3
“So, what are we looking for?” Freddie said.
“My guy didn’t say,” O’Shea said. “Just empty the safe.”
O’Shea drove into the dark suburban neighborhood in which tall streetlamps cast eerie black shadows across the asphalt. Freddie glanced at his feet where his black nylon bag lay, the tool provided by O’Shea inside. He’d tossed his old stuff years ago. Taped his to stomach was the sharpened pocketknife, warm against his skin.
“There,” O’Shea said. He stopped the car in front of the house. The short-trimmed grass had a sign in the middle with the name of a lawn care company. “You can bet the mighty citizens who own this place,” O’Shea said, “never dirty their hands with yard work.”
Curtains covered the windows. No light escaped the house.
“The occupants won’t be back ‘til late,” the gray-eyed man said.
O’Shea jumped out. Freddie’s eyes stayed on the house. O’Shea leaned back inside.
“Move it, champ.”
Freddie snapped out of his daze and pushed open the passenger door. His hands were empty. He reached back for the bag, slammed the door and followed O’Shea up the stone path to the house. His tapping footsteps sounded louder than ever and matched his thumping heartbeat. Just like on the yard. The hilt of the knife dug into his belly.
Freddie wasn’t a fan of drilling. Most safes were protected by a hard steel plate or a composite hard plate, so choosing to drill not only took time but was also useless against such safeguards. Even a “penny-ante” safe such as the one he was about to crack had a hard plate.
He stood in the master bedroom, examining the front of the wall safe. A Cain One-
Thousand. Pointless to drill but weak in other areas. He placed his bag on the king-sized bed, looked around the room. Only one side of the bed looked rumpled. Cluttered dresser, dusty mirror, crowded bookcase. Bare walls, plain curtains. No feminine touches. A man lived in the house alone. A clock ticked on the dresser.
From the nylon bag Freddie removed what looked like a television remote control. With magnets, the “remote” attached to the front of the safe, and he placed the device next to the combination lock. He plugged a pair of headphones into the device, put the phones over his ears.
He started moving the dial back and forth with steady fingers. Through the headphones he heard click-click-dunk. With each dunk he was closer to opening the box. The Cain One-Thousand had a three-digit combo.
No thoughts of Sheila or the baby flowed through his mind; his heart rate had settled to normal, no beads of sweat covered his forehead. He felt awake, refreshed.
Presently the last dunk came through loud and clear and Freddie wrenched the handle and pulled open the safe. He took a deep breath. Not much inside. A stack of stock certificates. A DVD in a plastic case. Small notebook. He scooped everything into the nylon bag, dropped the “remote” and headphones inside, zipped the bag. He smiled big at O’Shea. They exited the house.
At O’Shea’s apartment, Freddie plopped down on the dirty green couch, setting the bag on the chipped wooden coffee table before him. The pocketknife dug into his middle. O’Shea went into the kitchen. A television and X-Box against the wall faced him. The small living room had a stained carpet and a spider crouching in a web in an upper corner. Loud thuds and music seeped through the ceiling and indicated the upstairs neighbors were having a ball.
O’Shea returned with two bottles of beer. Freddie took one and popped the top with a quick twist. The cold pilsner tasted good. O’Shea fished a cordless phone from under the couch and quickly dialed a number.
“It’s done,” the gray-eyed man said after a moment. Freddie drank some more beer and studied O’Shea’s neck.
“Right, twenty minutes.” O’Shea turned off the phone, dropped it on the carpet. He lifted his beer. “Time to get paid.”
They drank. Then O’Shea said, “Let’s see the junk,” grabbed the nylon bag. He tossed the stock certificates, notebook, on the table. He held up the DVD. “Maybe it’s the guy’s homemade stag movies,” he said. He turned on the T.V. and fed the DVD into the Xbox.
A grainy color picture appeared. Two men in a conference room spoke in low voices. One sat at a large circular table while the second man paced back and forth. Freddie sat up and leaned forward as O’Shea cursed, reaching for the remote.
“Hang on, Jimmy.”
Freddie watched as the two men spoke, though the one at the table did most of the talking. The eye-patch gave away the seated man’s identity, and Freddie listened to every muffled word. Whoever taped the meeting had hidden the camera well. Neither seemed to know they were being recorded.
O’Shea said, “What are you so excited about?”
“The guy with the eye patch. Don’t you know who that is?”
“No.”
“I remember him from my days back east. New York. That’s Ugo Califano. Big shot wise guy.”
“Who’s the other guy looks like he’s holding back the runs?”
Freddie shook his head. “Him I’m not sure of. I wanna say he’s a politician--”
“Looks like your pirate friend’s trying to make a deal with him.”
Words like “good for all of us” and “think about the money” came from the mouth of the man with the eye patch. The other man finally stopped pacing, placed hands on hips, said, “Let’s do it.”
Freddie said, “Turn it off.”
O’Shea pressed stop. “What’s the big deal?”
“That’s what your guy wants.”
“Cool. He’ll be here soon, and we’ll get paid and you go home to your wife.”
Freddie drained his beer. “Want another?”
O’Shea swallowed the last of his beer. “Yeah.”
Freddie rose and was halfway to the kitchen when O’Shea said:
“That politician guy. He reminds me of a painting I saw the other night, where this knight guy was taking on a dragon but one blast of fire from the dragon’s mouth blew off the knight’s armor and the sucker ran around naked.”
“What do you mean?”
“The politician. He’s fooling around with something that’s gonna burn him bad.”
“You sure you only had one beer?”
In the kitchen Freddie reached under his shirt, yanked the knife free, wincing as the tape pulled from his skin. He tossed the tape in the trash. From the refrigerator he took a single bottle of beer. Freddie returned to the living room. O’Shea sat on the couch switching stations with the remote. Freddie smashed the bottle over O’Shea’s head.
Glass shards and sudsy beer splashed over the couch. O’Shea screamed. The jagged edges of the shards cut into his skin, left bubbly lines of blood on the side of his face. He threw his arms up to his head and tried to roll forward. Freddie flipped open his knife. O’Shea lunged sideways and collided with the safe cracker’s midsection. Freddie’s grip on the knife tightened as he flew back into a wall. O’Shea straightened and hammered with fists and elbows. Freddie dropped to the carpet and plunged the knife into O’Shea’s leg.
O’Shea hollered and staggered back and reached for the handle. Freddie tackled O’Shea, pressed a knee into his groin, wrapped calloused fingers around O’Shea’s neck and squeezed. Hard.
O’Shea garbled a scream. He swung fists to pummel Freddie, but only his forearms struck. Freddie grimaced, grinding his teeth. More pressure into the squeeze. O’Shea’s swings became weaker. His arms dropped. Gray eyes bulged. His face turned blue. Then he stopped moving. Freddie didn’t let go until O’Shea’s last gurgle assured the safe cracker that the deed was done. Freddie unlocked his hands and yanked out the knife and hauled O’Shea’s head back to expose his neck and buried the blade all the way to the handle.
Freddie rolled off the body. He scrambled back into the darkened entryway, gasping, chest pumping up and down. His lungs burned. Sweat stung his eyes. He lurched into the sitting room, scooped the DVD and other items back into the nylon bag, turned toward the front door.
And turned back. He grabbed the cordless phone, chucked it into the bag. It would have the number of O’Shea’s contact stored in memory. In the kitchen, on the counter, he found an envelope, scratched a note with a leaky pen, and dropped the envelope on the body.
He headed for the door but stopped again. Out in the hallway somebody might see him. He crossed to the patio doors, slid them open, spent a moment scanning the shadowy center courtyard. Three floors up. Landing hard on the ground beat being caught in the hallway. Freddie Webster clamped his free hand on the rail, launched his body over, and watched the ground race up to meet him.
4
Ben Regan, the man who hired O’Shea to find Freddie, knocked on O’Shea’s door. No answer. He tried the rust-spotted knob, which didn’t budge. He leaned closer. Some of the frame trim was coming loose. Through the gap, he saw that the deadbolt wasn’t engaged. Regan flipped open a knife and pushed the blade through the gap until he found the blocker connected to the knob. Lining up the blade with the blocker, he pushed forward, pressing the blocker into the lock recess. Then he shoved the door open.
On the floor lay O’Shea. Regan shut the door and went over to the body, careful to avoid the blood-soaked carpet. The chilly draft from the still-open patio door showed Regan the killer’s escape route. He frowned when he saw the blood-stained envelope. Regan leaned down. The killer had scrawled four words:
Wait for my call.
Regan straightened, checked the cell phone on his belt and turned up the volume. When the killer reached him, he didn’t want the phone in silent mode.
The dry stuffiness of the abandoned building was making Wolf irritable. He’d spent most of the remaining nigh
t on the roof, counting stars. Once the sun came up, he went to the cot to lie down. He kept the wireless receiver at full volume, the headphones within reach. Time passed. Only the lookouts changed.
Around midnight several trucks and SUVs began pulling up. Somebody inside opened the big sliding door. At his window, Wolf watched the gun runners, including blond-haired Ace in his leather jacket, meander inside as if nothing would ever spoil their party.
Wolf yanked off the headphones. He checked his pistol and shotgun and strapped on the bandoleer of grenades. He made his way up to the roof and raced across the rooftops once more, crossing to the other side, following the opposite rooftops back to the warehouse. There he found the rope, lowered himself to the window he’d used before, and slipped inside.
Easing open the door in the empty second-floor room, Wolf gazed out at the busy gun runners unloading crates and laying weapons out on the floor side by side. Their voices bounced, echoed; the crates popped, snapped, as men wielding crowbars pried them open. Wolf kept to the shadows as he advanced down the walkway. He tossed a grenade into the center of the warehouse. All eyes turned to the small bomb as it clunked on the ground, bounced once, and exploded in mid-air.
Wolf pitched a second grenade, and then a third. The gun runners screamed. Some fired pistol shots into the smoke and shadows. Wolf raced to the metal steps, tucking the shotgun into his right shoulder. Through smoke and fire Wolf picked out movement to the left. He fired once, twice. Two men went down. Somebody on the floor drew a pistol. Wolf fired again, the man jerking with the impacts of the shot shell burst.