by Michael Kerr
“Hi, Logan. Come on in,” Clifton said, turning and heading for the kitchen, leaving Logan to enter and close the door behind him.
Without bothering to ask, Clifton poured coffee for them both. “You got any news?” he said as they sat at the table.
“I’ve got a lead,” Logan said. “Whoever killed Tanya decided that I’m a threat to him. He contacted some gangster in Denver to arrange for me to meet with an untimely end and vanish.”
“How do you know that?”
“Best that you don’t know, Clifton. But once I get a name it’ll be game over.”
“Have you told this to Lyle?”
“No. I’d have to explain how I got the information, and I can’t.”
Clifton was quick on the uptake. He thought, rightly, that whoever had been sent to deal with Logan had come off second best and given up the name of the guy that had sent him. He had the feeling that it was the hitman that had wound up disappearing, and that he would not reappear.
“You killed him.” Clifton said.
“Let it lie,” Logan said. “I did what I needed to. The important thing is to find the murderer in town and make sure that Ray is fully exonerated.”
“So what will you do now?”
“I want to check some stuff on Google. I’d like to use your p.c.”
“Fine,” Clifton said.
Logan drained his cup and changed his mind. “On second thoughts, it’s a bad idea,” he said. “Depending on what goes down, the police may get round to checking your computer. I wouldn’t want them to think that you were involved in this. I’ll use an internet café in Denver. And I won’t use your pickup. I’ll let you drive me out to I-25. I can hitch from there.”
“You sure you want to do this, Logan?”
“Yeah. Especially since the killer made this personal. I like to wrap things up and put them to bed.”
“What if…if you don’t make it back?”
“Then tell Lyle that there’s a connection between whoever killed Tanya and a gangster by the name of Wade McCall in Denver. He’ll have to join the dots if I go missing.”
“When do you plan on leaving?”
“Dawn.”
Logan was good to go before daylight. He had packed everything in his rucksack, not knowing whether he would ever return to Carson Creek. It would all depend on what happened up in Denver. He felt confident. He had the late hitman’s gun, and the knife in its ankle sheath, and plenty of money.
After a quick coffee, he went over to the house and knocked at the door. Clifton came out and headed over to the pickup. They said little on the drive through the mountains to the interstate.
As they arrived at Castle Rock, Logan said, “Here will be fine,”
“What do I tell Kate or Lyle when they ask where you are?” Clifton said.
“That I asked you to drive me out here,” Logan said. “Tell them that I said I had business to take care of, and that I expected to be back in the Creek in under forty-eight hours. I’ll give you a call if that changes.”
Logan got out and slung a strap of his rucksack over his shoulder. Clifton held his hand out, and Logan shook it
“Thanks for what you’re doing,” Clifton said.
“No problem,” Logan said and headed off to the bottom of the northbound ramp of the interstate.
Within ten minutes he had a ride. A thin old guy with a gray brush cut and matching stubble on his face stopped in a beat-up Mustang and asked him where he was headed.
“Denver,” Logan said.
“So climb in.”
Logan tossed his rucksack into the rear, got in the car and adjusted the seat to give him more legroom.
“I’m Ralph. Pleased to meet you.”
“Likewise. I’m Logan.”
Ralph Maskell put the Mustang into drive and accelerated up the ramp and joined the northbound traffic. “You visiting Denver on business or for pleasure?” he asked.
Logan smiled. “You reckon I look like a businessman, Ralph?”
“Heck, no, I was just being polite and starting up a conversation. You look like a drifter, but with purpose. If you were twenty years younger I’d take you for a soldier coming home.”
Logan smiled. Though not a social animal by nature, he enjoyed talking to strangers who seemed personable, and Ralph gave the impression of being the type of guy that had earned every one of the wrinkles that lined his face.
“I take it you’ve been in uniform,” Logan said.
Ralph nodded as he lit up a Camel and then opened his window a couple inches to let the smoke escape. “Nam,” he said. “I’m one of the relics of a war that left a bad taste in most Americans’ mouths. We did our duty, and came back to a country that seemed to condemn us for it. Maybe they were right. Politicians rule the roost. How about you?”
“Gulf one, and a few other places,” Logan said. “I always avoided having an opinion on the merits of it. Just followed orders. I signed up, so lived with it and did what needed to be done.”
“Marine?”
“Yeah.”
“Semper fi, Logan.”
“Back at ya, Ralph. Loyalty is a code to live by.”
“True. So what are you visiting Denver for?”
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
Ralph chuckled, but thought that Logan actually half meant it. There was ice in his gray eyes. He was like others Ralph had met, back in the day. Not a guy that took any pleasure in killing, but one that could do it with no more remorse than if he had inadvertently stepped on a bug. The memories of the horrors in Vietnam had stayed with Ralph. Almost forty years on he still sometimes woke up in the dead of night in a cold sweat. Seeing friends and comrades die left an indelible impression on many soldiers’ souls. But he was positive that Logan could sleep well, and had not let what he’d lived through affect him.
“What do you do, Ralph?” Logan inquired. “Or are you a retiree with a pastime to keep your mind occupied?”
“Use your nose, Logan,” Ralph said.
Logan could smell the tobacco smoke that had darkened the interior of the car in a patina of nicotine, and a faint scent of lemon that he guessed was from the soap Ralph had used to wash his face with that morning. But the underlying odor was of an animal. “You keep pigs,” he said.
“I don’t keep them, Logan. I rear the critters and send them off to market. It’s what I’ve done for thirty years, and I think the stink of them has become part of who I am now.”
All too soon they were in downtown Denver. Ralph stopped at the junction of 14th Street and East Colfax, and Logan retrieved his rucksack and got out. “It was nice to meet you, Ralph,” he said, and meant it.
“And you, Logan,” Ralph said before driving away.
Logan took a leisurely stroll to the Amtrak station on 21st Street and put his rucksack in a storage locker. It took bills, and so he fed it nine bucks, which was the daily rate. He had walking money and the knife for company. Found an internet café and thought of how best to approach Wade McCall as he brought up a map of the city and zoomed in on the area he was interested in as he enjoyed a large paper cup full of black coffee. Decided in the end that it would save a lot of time to just call at his office cold and talk straight.
“Help you?” Lenny Benedict said to Logan as he walked in off Broadway into a large reception area.
“Yeah, I need to speak to Wade.”
“About?”
“Private business. You don’t need to know the details.”
“And you are?”
“I’m Logan. Run that name past your boss.”
“And if I don’t?” Lenny said, stepping up to within two feet of Logan.
Logan smiled. He was perhaps an inch taller than the muscular black guy, whose light blue polyester jacket was almost bursting its seams against his muscles.
“Back off, son,” he said. “You’re in my face, and I find that slightly annoying. And your breath stinks of garlic.”
Lenny just sto
od and blinked a few times. He wasn’t used to guys standing up to him, much less insulting him. He thought it through. Decided that phoning upstairs to his boss might be the best thing to do.
“You got a bad attitude, man,” he said to Logan. And then went behind a counter, picked up the phone on it and punched in an extension number.
“Yeah,” Wade said.
“I gotta guy down here says his name is Logan. He wants to see you, boss.”
“Make sure he’s not wired or carrying, and then send him up,” Wade said. “Lock the door to the street and join us.”
Lenny hung up the phone and returned to where Logan was standing. “I need to frisk you,” he said.
Lifting his arms Logan said, “Knock yourself out.”
Lenny found the knife in the ankle sheath. Removed it and pointed to the door behind them next to the counter.
“Go on up,” he said to Logan. “First on your left at the top of the stairs.”
Logan walked past Lenny, pushed the door open and went up. Didn’t knock, just went into the spacious office behind it.
Wade was sitting behind a semicircular blond wood desk. Logan thought he looked a lot like Martin Sheen, the actor that had starred in the West Wing on TV. The resemblance ended with his facial features. He wore an expensive dark-gray pinstripe suit and a maroon silk tie, but with long, dyed hair held back in a ponytail, and chunky gold rings on three fingers of each hand, he couldn’t pull off a sophisticated look. Appeared more like some middle-aged hip-hop music producer from the City of Angels.
“Take a seat, Mr, er, Logan, isn’t it?” Wade said.
“You know who I am, McCall,” Logan said. “If you didn’t, then I wouldn’t have got past Muscles downstairs without breaking his arms.”
“I very much doubt you could have done that,” Wade said.
Logan smiled. “Doubt implies uncertainty.”
Wade was more than curious. Mickey had not contacted him, and it was obvious that he had not been able to fulfill the contract. “So what can I do for you Mr. Logan?” he said as Lenny entered the office and took up a position at the side of the door.
“Simple, Mr. McCall. You give me the name of the guy that wanted me hit, and I walk away and call it quits.”
Wade looked blank and said, “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
“Sure you do. You sent Mickey Morgan to Carson Creek. I talked with him, and he told me quite a lot of interesting stuff. The one thing that he couldn’t tell me was who took out the contract on me. At this point in time I’m willing to just think of you as a middleman. But if I don’t get a name, then I’ll have to reconsider and change my polite and good-natured approach into something more aggressive.”
Wade pushed his chair back and shot upright to a modest five-nine. “You’re beginnin’ to piss me off, Logan,” he said. “Get the fuck out of my office before I let Lenny finish whatever this Morgan character couldn’t.”
Logan didn’t move. Stood resolute. His body language told Wade that he had no intention of backing off.
An almost imperceptible nod of Wade’s head was an instruction for Lenny to make a move. He came at Logan from behind, confident that he could administer a devastating kidney punch that would put the man down and unable to defend himself against further punishment.
Logan just wasn’t there. Lenny’s fist hit nothing more substantial than thin air. His own weight took Lenny forward, stumbling as he lost balance, only to be lifted slightly as a boot came up from the side to bury into his stomach, a split second before his head crashed into the front edge of the desk. He was out cold before he hit the floor.
It took Wade a couple of seconds to appreciate the circumstances. By then Logan had retrieved his sheathed knife from Lenny’s jacket, drawn the weapon and was at the side of the desk holding the blade to Wade’s throat.
“Looks like Plan B, Wade,” Logan said. “Put both of your hands palm down on the desk, and then tell me the name of the contractor, now, or it all ends here for you.”
“What did you do to Morgan?” Wade asked.
“What do you think? I killed him. I have a problem with folk that wish to do me harm.”
“And if I give you a name, you might kill me.”
“I will if you don’t, that’s set in stone.”
Wade was in a bind. He had a semiautomatic pistol in the desk drawer next to his right hand, but it might as well have been on the moon.
He hesitated for too long. Logan plunged the knife’s blade through the back of his right hand, pinning it to the wood.
Wade let out a cry of anguish and attempted to pull his hand free, causing more damage. Two inches of the blade had sunk through the desktop. The point had pierced the underside and would’ve looked like a steel shark’s tooth to anyone that could have seen it
“The name, Wade,” Logan said. “And if it doesn’t check out I’ll be back. And it’ll be when and where you least expect. You won’t see me coming.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Wade whispered.
“Just a guy with nothing to lose. The name?”
“Larry Horton.”
Logan nodded. It didn’t surprise him. He used his left hand to hold Wade’s injured hand down as he pulled the knife out. Wiped the blood from both sides of the blade on the shoulder of the gangster’s expensive jacket.
“Okay, Wade,” Logan said, patting the man down to see if he was armed, and then checking the drawers to find the handgun and remove it, using a Kleenex from a box on the desk as a barrier to his prints. “I think we’re done here. Get up and go lay face down next to Sleeping Beauty.”
Wade did as he was told. He wanted to tell Logan that he was a fuckin’ dead man walkin’, but decided not to push his luck. The knife in the back of his hand had concentrated his mind. Any threats he made would no doubt result in more injury and pain.
Logan found Lenny’s cell phone, asked Wade for his, and removed the SIM cards. He then cut the line to the phone on the desk. All he needed was sixty seconds head start to hit the street and be swallowed up in foot traffic on the sidewalk.
“One more thing, Wade,” Logan said as he reached the door. “If Larry runs, it’ll be because you warned him. That would be another reason for me to come back to Denver. Understand?”
Wade nodded.
“Say it,” Logan said.
“I understand.”
“I hope so, because you really don’t want to go to war with me. Believe that.”
Wade closed his eyes, gritted his teeth against the pain in his hand and vowed to himself that he would have Logan hunted down, tortured and killed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Logan walked for a couple of blocks, entered an alley and took the mag out of McCall’s gun, pocketed it, and returned to the street, to dump the pistol in a mailbox, still wrapped in the tissue. With any luck it would be handed in to the police, and might have latents and history that would cause McCall grief.
Fifteen minutes later Logan found a small café down a side street near the Amtrak station and ordered a pot of coffee. He thought that he should cut loose and catch a train heading south, after first phoning Lyle Bumgarner and telling him that the killer was Larry Horton. He didn’t need the complication of going back. There was nothing more that he could do. Problem was that Lyle would want details. Having one of his deputies accused of murder would not go down well, and Logan couldn’t tell him the truth. He wasn’t about to mention Morgan and McCall and implicate himself. Maybe they’d already found the burned out car and the corpse of the hitman. But if he went back to the Creek what could he do? He had no proof that Horton was guilty. And it wasn’t his problem.
By the time he had emptied the pot, Logan knew that he couldn’t just move on and put it behind him. He was used to dealing with things from beginning to end. It would eat at his soul if he left it like this. He sighed. Strange how one bad thing led to another in his life. He was basically a loner and enjoyed being so, but other people’s problems
always seemed to impact with his desire to just move through life at an easy pace and mind his own business. There was a conflict within him. He saw it as a weakness. He couldn’t ignore the plight of others. His humanity ordained that if he could help those that did not have the capabilities to help themselves, then he would. No good questioning it, fighting it or trying to change. He was what he was. It struck him that it was just part of the blueprint; genetics. His character and personality was a result of all his ancestors. He was a product of the past, his own upbringing, environs, and his life experience to date.
Retrieving his rucksack, Logan wiped and dumped Morgan’s gun and then caught a bus to Greenwood Village, which was next to I-25. Ten minutes after that he was in the cab of a Peterbilt, talking about football and hunting with a burly trucker.
Kate phoned Clifton at midday, asked how he and Ray were doing, and then to be put through to Logan’s room.
“He’s not here, Kate,” Clifton said. “He said he had business to take care of. I dropped him off next to the interstate early this morning.”
Kate experienced a sinking feeling in her stomach. Thought that Logan may have just up and gone, and realized that for him to just vanish without saying goodbye saddened her. If he had moved on, then she couldn’t blame him. He had most likely only stopped off in Carson Creek to take time out and recharge his batteries, not become involved in a murder case. But she had thought he cared for her, and was disappointed by his sudden disappearance.
“He said he should be back within forty-eight hours,” Clifton added. “Maybe he will be.”
“Thanks, Clifton,” Kate said. “Have you heard about the body found out at the old Springdale mine?”
“Uh, no. What happened?”
“A couple of kids found the gates open so went in to explore. They came across a burnt-out car with a body in the trunk.”
“Was it someone from the Creek?”