The Fourth Option

by Matt Hilton

  ‘It can be for Mercer,’ Rink added. ‘He’s got the connections through Sue’s network to disappear and start afresh some place. The same can’t be said for us, brother.’

  Rink had a business to run, a stable home, and friends down in Tampa. Whether or not Arrowsake agreed to our terms he wasn’t prepared to run away and leave those things behind, and I wouldn’t either.

  I steered the conversation away to another possible future. ‘I’ve been thinking about your suggestion about flicking through Sue’s property portfolio, seeing if there’s someplace I can come to some agreement on with Mercer.’

  He made a gesture indicating where we sat. ‘You could do worse than taking on this place. It has everythin’ you need and then some.’

  I scowled over at the parking garage. I’d never think of the building in the same way again, forever it would remain a morgue, tainted by the memory of Sue’s resting place. Enough ghosts haunted me without having to endure a reminder every time I went to fetch my car from the garage.

  ‘Nah,’ I said. ‘The landscape’s too flat here for my liking. It didn’t have mountains, but I lived at Mexico Beach because of the sea and beaches. The views here would bore me in no time.’

  Rink grunted in mirth at my attempt to feed him bullshit, and gave me a nudge with his elbow. We both laughed, but it didn’t last. Rink turned his gaze towards the parking garage. ‘Yeah, the view would bother me, too,’ he admitted.

  ‘I’m sorry she died, man.’

  ‘Yeah, me too.’

  ‘When I left you guys alone in the hotel, did you get chance to say what needed saying?’

  He rocked his head. ‘You weren’t gone long before Vince and his goons showed up…but, yeah; we both got to say a thing or two, and I’m sure we ended up as friends again. Things could never be like they were before though. You didn’t get to see when we rescued her and she fell into Mercer’s arms. That guy loved her, and I think she’d suspected for long enough, but she still looked at me first for approval before she returned his affection. Wasn’t my place to come between them.’

  We fell silent again. I pictured how, barely a minute later, the bullet meant for Mercer had killed Sue, and Rink probably had a similar picture in his mind. We sat in companionable silence for some time, and together watched the sun lowering over the distant Gulf.

  After a while, Rink stood, shoved his pistol in his belt and went inside. I stayed on the porch and watched the stars come out.

  The ringing of my cell phone disturbed my ruminations.

  ‘It’s done,’ Walter announced the instant I answered.

  ‘They’ve agreed to all of our terms?’

  ‘They understand that no good can come from them continuing this fight. They know that coming after any of us will destroy them too. I made it clear that I would bury the evidence, that it would never see daylight, unless they gave us cause to dig it up again. They also know I made copies that will be released the second anything untoward happens to any of us.’

  ‘This includes Mercer?’

  ‘Especially Mercer.’

  ‘You trust them to uphold the agreement?’

  ‘They are a bunch of lying hyenas,’ Walter reminded me, ‘but I believe they’ll stick to their part. Hunter, son, while they’re fighting us, they gain nothing and risk everything. They understand that now. In fact, keeping us alive and the evidence under wraps has become a priority for them. They’ve rescinded the hit on Mercer, and have also disavowed Stephen Vincent.’

  ‘They’ve burned Vince? I thought he was their star pupil.’

  ‘They’re unhappy at the way he has handled things, and left a trail of bodies and destruction in his wake. They’re pulling out all the stops to cover up what happened at Sue’s house, and in Mexico Beach. They’re using what considerable influence they have to change the narratives at each scene. Obviously their efforts in cleaning up gets you boys off the hook too.’

  ‘What about the bodies left at the hostage exchange site?’

  ‘Already cleaned. Thankfully the glade was remote and there were no witnesses to what happened. The people killed there were private contractors, and easily made to disappear. Vince’s staging post was set up at a property nearby but their cleaners have been in and scrubbed every trace of their activities.’

  ‘This was where Sue was tortured?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They should burn the place to the fucking ground,’ I growled. ‘Burning it would attract unwanted attention.’

  ‘I know. Shame they didn’t find Vince there when they went in. Mercer shot him; I had hoped he’d bled to death.’

  ‘Vince made himself scarse before they could arrive. His handlers suspect he’d guessed what was coming and skedaddled. He has kept off the radar since: they thought perhaps you had caught up with him already and solved the problem for them.’

  ‘That’s one problem I wouldn’t mind solving, but it wouldn’t be on their behalf.’

  ‘It saddens me that it has come to this,’ Walter said. ‘There was a time I had high hopes for that boy, but…well, he was never going to be the man you turned out to be, Joe.’

  It was supposed to be a show of endearment towards me, but I didn’t react to it. Whatever man Vince had turned out to be had been influenced by Walter, and the thought gave me pause. Who was the real monster: Victor Frankenstein or his creation? I said, ‘What about Spencer Booth and his men?’

  ‘Still in situ in my vault.’

  ‘How does Arrowsake feel about that?’

  ‘They deem Booth’s death collateral damage, and accept that forcing me to choose between them and you was bound to end badly. They’re currently concocting a plausible scenario to explain his sudden disappearance. I’ve told them I’ll give back the bodies. We’ll probably hear in the next few days how he has burned up in a car wreck or downed flight or some other cockamamie story.’

  ‘I’ve no love for the guy, but what about Wyatt Carling?’ There was the possibility that withdrawing his monetary aid from them could give them cause to punish him. At our urging he’d encouraged rebellion among his other rich friends under Arrowsake’s control, an act that could severely damage their cash flow and force them to shut him up permanently.

  ‘He’s been given special dispensation from retribution, and has been allowed to withdraw his involvement in their organisation without fear of penalty. Don’t forget, they can’t finger him for Councilman Lauder’s murder without also coming under scrutiny.’

  ‘They could still kill him.’

  ‘They won’t. Who will purchase their services in future if they think they might end up dead?’

  ‘So what happens now, Walt?’

  ‘We do the right thing for Sue Bouchard.’

  ‘Yes, we should,’ I said, as a proper funeral was overdue.

  ‘And we watch our backs,’ Walter added, because we still had an active enemy out there who wasn’t constrained by the truce struck with his old masters.

  39

  A few days after fleeing Florida, Vince Everett — not Stephen Vincent — was hiding in plain sight. He stood at the bar in a trendy pub overlooking the George Washington Memorial Parkway, and the Potomac River. He was probably equidistant between the George Bush Center for Intelligence and the Pentagon, so was in the stomping grounds of both the intelligence services and the military, factions he must now consider as potential enemies. The bar wouldn’t have been his first choice for a clandestine meeting: it was the domain of Generation Z students and sad sack Millennials desperate to cling to their youth. Vince could be mistaken for one of the latter, except he didn’t conform to the adopted fashions in his leather biker’s jacket, jeans and cowboy boots. Many of the guys there wore hairstyles similar to his, but their coiffed hair and perfectly groomed hipster beards contrasted with his stubbled face and wilder greased ducktails. They elected to drink gin, or margaritas or who knew what else, while he stuck to the piss water masquerading as drought beer from the pumps.

 
; There was a bubble around him, where other guys in the bar didn’t step foot, and it wasn’t because they disliked his aftershave lotion. He’d attracted attention from a couple of women, attracted by his bad boy image, but he’d given them short shrift and sent them packing with a surly grunt, or blatant curse. He wanted to drink his beer and couldn’t do that while fending off inane chatter or too familiar hands. He’d hooked his right heel on the brass footrest running the length of the bar and braced his right elbow on the bar itself, bending his mouth to his glass rather than lift it. Nobody could have guessed he was recovering from wounds to both limbs, his only visible injury the ugly scab on his ear.

  Around him voices babbled, growing louder and higher-pitched in line with the volume of alcohol imbibed. Accents were many, and the clientele diverse, with numerous skin colours represented. A man brayed like a donkey at his own joke, an abrasive forced laugh that caused a tic to jump at the corner of Vince’s jaw. He scowled over at the comedian, a mistake in hindsight. He turned back to his beer. The laugh, he understood, was not only at the joke but also at his expense. Vince didn’t give a shit; his image often attracted derision.

  His beer finished, he caught the eye of the bartender and ordered another. While he waited, he cupped his empty glass in his palm, and took surreptitious glances at the mirror behind the bar. He didn’t know the face of the man he’d come to meet, but was certain he stood out enough that he wouldn’t be missed. There were clusters of friends standing in groups, yapping and laughing. He noticed when somebody was moving against the tide and out of rhythm with his fellow drinkers. But this wasn’t the person he’d come to meet; the joker was wending his way through the crowd, followed by a couple of his pals. The joker, a burly guy with a thick beard and shaved head posted at the bar beside him, invading Vince’s space. Vince stayed put, mulling over his empty glass in studied indifference.

  The bartender brought Vince’s second beer. He let it settle on the bar, a ring of foam bubbling on the counter, while taking the joker’s order. The bartender frowned a little, perhaps feeling the tension from Vince or the faux joviality from the joker and moved away.

  ‘Say!’ The joker had turned his attention on Vince. ‘I haven’t seen your face in here before.’

  Without looking at him, Vince said, ‘What does that tell you, buddy?’

  ‘You ain’t from around here, I’d guess.’

  Vince checked out his reflection. The joker’s two pals had set up behind him, one at each shoulder. One man was big, red-haired and freckled, the other a black guy, tall and athletic.

  ‘You’d guess right,’ said Vince.

  ‘See, I’d say, if you were from around here you’d know that these things here aren’t acceptable.’ The joker’s finger tapped at a patch sewn on the left shoulder of Vince’s leather jacket. Vince didn’t need to look to know what had gotten the guy’s blood up: these days the Confederate battle flag had been adopted by neo-Nazis, and neo-Confederate white nationalists and other hate groups. For decades music fans had displayed it innocently as a nod of respect to the land where country and rockabilly music originated. Fitting his guise of Vince Everett his jacket sported a number of flags and banners paying homage to Dixie.

  ‘Last time I checked Virginia was still in the South,’ Vince said.

  ‘Are you one of those racist motherfuckers?’ The joker jerked a thumb at his black friend. ‘My buddy Julan is offended by that flag. His ancestors were enslaved by white cracker motherfuckers waving the same flag as yours.’

  Vince sighed. ‘Don’t get me started on slavery, man. My Irish ancestors were brought here in shackles too, as indentured servants. Call them what you want, unpaid servants, slaves, but they were treated as badly as any nigger.’

  His final word was a deliberate trigger. He hadn’t come to the bar looking for trouble, but it had found him, and he only wished it over with.

  ‘You are a motherfucking racist,’ Joker snapped.

  ‘Man,’ said Vince at the inevitability of what was coming, ‘I’m not a racist. I only hate white apologist hipsters with stupid-looking beards.’

  The blood drained from the joker’s features. Vince recognised the effects as endorphins washing through the joker’s body as he prepared to launch his attack. Behind Vince the other two guys postured, ready to jump to their pal’s assistance. Vince beat them all to the punch—

  Rather, he smashed the empty glass upside the joker’s head. The glass shattered with enough noise to still everyone around them, all bar none shocked by the sudden violence in their midst. Vince filled the void with action. As the joker reeled away wailing and trying to hold together his gashed cheek, Vince jabbed an elbow into the black guy’s sternum and drove him back. With enough space cleared, he spun and kicked savagely between the man’s legs, and before he had folded to the floor, Vince rounded on the third man in the group.

  ‘You want some of this?’ Vince snarled.

  The big, freckle-faced guy was torn. He glanced between his two injured pals, and was still deciding if retreat was the better part of valor when Vince capitalised on his indecision. Vince launched at him, spearing at the bigger man with his forehead leading the attack. The man got his hands between them, and grasped Vince’s forearms, but it did nothing to stop the headbutt. Vince’s forehead crushed the cartilage in the man’s nose. Blood poured down his chin, but he still had a grasp on Vince. Vince butted him again, and then a third time, and the guy collapsed senseless to the floor.

  A cacophony arose around Vince. People either scattered to avoid his wrath, moved to encircle him, or to help the trio of injured men. Vince was aware he faced the potential of further violence, but he turned his back on it, and reached for his second glass of beer. He downed it in one long swallow, and then set it down on the bar. Opposite him, the bartender looked on in horror. Vince wiped the froth off his chin with the back of a leather-clad wrist. ‘I’ll take another, please,’ said Vince.

  The violent clash had lasted seconds at most, but the aftermath would resonate much longer. The joker wasn’t laughing now, he was bleating. Julan was gasping, while Freckles was making a soft mewling sound. The other bar goers were all strident, noisier even than before. The bartender shook his head at Vince’s temerity. ‘You’re outta here, man,’ the bartender said, from the safety afforded by the bar separating them. ‘Go on. Get outta here before I have to call the cops.’

  ‘What is it with all this intolerance? There won’t be any more trouble from me.’ Vince took a stack of dollars from his pocket and tossed them down on the bar. ‘C’mon, man, I’m beginning to get a taste for that Granny’s piss you’re selling as beer.’

  The bartender shook his head again. His head darted around, possibly looking for the doormen who had failed to show up yet. Vince felt a hand clutch his elbow. He checked it out, and then followed the hand to its source. The small, skinny man facing him was either the most innocuous-looking doorman in town, or the person Vince had come to meet.

  ‘You’re David Paulson, I take it?’ asked Vince.

  ‘Are you trying to attract unwanted attention or what?’ Paulson was genuinely unnerved by what he must have just witnessed.

  ‘Don’t know if you noticed, but I was just standing here minding my own business when these clowns decided to butt in.’

  ‘Come with me. We’re going to have to go somewhere else now.’ Paulson jerked his head towards the door, and set off. Vince followed and noted that a path through the drinkers had cleared for him.

  Outside, Paulson indicated up the street. ‘I have a car.’

  ‘Lead on, then.’ Vince gave a little smile.

  As they strode for the car, Paulson glanced at him, his face twisted with concern. ‘The cops could’ve been called, man, and I don’t want them sniffing around my business. What were you thinking, taking on those three dudes like that?’

  Vince shrugged his shoulders dismissively. ‘It was easy. I just pictured some other guys I want to kill, and couldn’t restrain the u
rge.’

  ‘These are the three you want my assistance with?’

  ‘Yup,’ said Vince. ‘Just wait til I tell you what they did to Pam. I bet you’ll want to kill them too.’

  40

  ‘How are you holding out?’ I asked Jason Mercer.

  ‘I’m as sick as a dog,’ he admitted, and wiped a hand across his bloodless features, ‘but I’ve managed to hold down my lunch for now.’

  I clapped him on his shoulder.

  My enquiry was actually about his emotional state, rather than his nausea, but I hadn’t made it clear. While he was concentrating on not being sick, he wasn’t dwelling on why we were out on a boat.

  We had been on the water for a couple of hours by then, but were on the way back to shore. Earlier we’d been riding the swells, but the change in direction now put us at odds as the boat undulated from side to side with each wave we summited. I was feeling a little queasy too, but didn’t let on. Rink sat cross-legged at the prow of the boat, almost Swami-like, gazing at the distant line of sand dunes denoting the state park on St. Joseph Peninsula — he was probably fighting seasickness too, concentrating on the horizon rather than the rolling sea.

  The only other person on the small charter boat was a man who had been paid enough to ask no questions. The skipper was a military veteran, old enough to have fought alongside Walter in Vietnam, but we didn’t ask and he didn’t tell. Neither had he presided over the ceremony as we’d lowered Sue Bouchard’s remains into the water; Mercer had spoken a eulogy for her, and me and Rink honoured her with a salute and whispered goodbye. Rather than a wreath, Mercer had scattered flower petals to dissipate on the current, so there would be no hint a burial had occurred. Afterwards, the skipper had turned the prow for the far away shore. The sun was at its zenith and there were other craft out on the Gulf, but none of them close enough that our actions had been witnessed. It was best that way.

  Holding a burial at sea is legal, as long as certain requirements are met. There are designated areas where a burial can be performed, and distance and depth play a factor, as well as how heavy a coffin or shroud are weighted, to avoid a body being washed back to shore. Usually a retrospective permit is granted by the Environmental Protection Agency, and a registrar or preacher — the latter depending on the deceased’s religion — or even a layman presides over the ceremony. I was pretty certain that Walter adhered to none of the requirements when arranging Sue Bouchard’s burial: there was no death certificate, no holy man, and no report would be given to the EPA. But we did give Sue a dignified send off by sinking her remains to the bottom of the Gulf five miles out beyond St. Joseph Peninsula. We chose the maritime tradition of a burial at sea for Sue as it was in keeping with how she’d originally supposedly died. We were on the wrong side of the Atlantic from where she had reportedly drowned and been lost at sea off the coast of Tenerife, but it was still the same ocean.