by Matt Rogers
So they found an available rental property online in St. Francis and booked it for a night, no questions asked, and they were off the street fifteen minutes after peeling away from the motel.
Alexis got there fifteen minutes after that.
Slater threw the door open when she pulled into the townhouse’s driveway and crossed to her. He held her by the shoulders, looked her up and down. ‘You’re not hurt?’
‘Back’s killing me,’ she said. ‘But I took care of it.’
‘How many came after you?’
‘Six.’
Understanding passed between them. They could unpack it later, talk through the intricacies of the psychological effects, but for now all that mattered was that she was alive.
That they were all alive.
She said, ‘We barely spoke on the phone.’
‘Mary’s inside. They were taking her as we got there.’
‘How many?’
‘Three.’
She raised an eyebrow, asking a question with a gesture.
He nodded.
She said, ‘So nine dead in total.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And I took two out early this morning. The ones watching Mary’s place. I left them alive but they’re not going to be useful for weeks.’
They exchanged a look.
Slater said, ‘Heidi can’t keep doing this forever.’
‘She’s going to try. She called a phone in the ride I took. One of the guys left it behind. I answered and spoke to her. I get the sense she’s going to double down.’
Slater hadn’t even noticed what she was driving. Now he looked at the black SUV. ‘That’s not the car you rented?’
‘No. I drove that into a lake. Long story. This one’s theirs.’
‘Get it off the street.’
She got back in the SUV and drove it into the one-car garage that Slater opened up for her. Then they went inside. King and Mary were hunched over the dining room table. Both looked stoic, but when Mary looked up and saw Alexis she nearly broke down.
She crossed the room and pulled her into a hug. ‘Fuck, I’m so sorry. They must’ve followed me. I didn’t do any of the evasive measures you told me about. I couldn’t remember them. I panicked. I’m…I’m not used to this.’
Alexis held her at arm’s length, shook her head. ‘You’re not supposed to be used to this.’
‘You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
Alexis sighed. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.’
King got up, went to her, hugged her. When they parted he looked into her eyes. ‘Was it bad?’
‘I don’t know how to feel,’ she mumbled.
‘Focus on today first,’ he said. ‘You can deal with all that shit later.’
‘Yeah.’
They all settled at the kitchen table.
Alexis sighed, ran her hands through her hair. They could see she was looking to distract herself from what had happened. They waited for the inevitable questions.
She said, ‘So Frankie being in California isn’t a coincidence?’
King shook his head. ‘We don’t have actual confirmation, but it’s obvious enough. We wormed our way into teaching a class. He was impressed. All we had to do was hint at an unsavoury past and he asked us to come back at nine-thirty tonight. After the gym’s closed.’
Alexis raised her eyebrows. ‘To kill someone for Heidi?’
‘He didn’t say. We’ll find out.’
‘Would he really try to recruit you that quickly?’
Slater said, ‘That was our plan. We weren’t sure if it’d work. But he could see what we were capable of. He knew, if he got us on board, we’d be indispensable. He’s probably fantasising about it now. Having us go out there two, three times a night, rake in six figures for him in a single evening. Even after our cuts, he’d be making a fortune.’
King watched Alexis closely. ‘I heard you two in the driveway. You said Heidi called you.’
Alexis nodded. ‘Last I told you about was going into Vitality+. She seemed unhinged then, too…’
‘But now?’
‘It’s worse.’
Slater said, ‘Let me play devil’s advocate.’
They all looked at him.
He said, ‘King and I go for Heidi marauder-style, wipe her out. We do the same for Frankie. Then we fuck off back to Boston and get Alonzo to put another digital blanket over us, hope the police don’t track us down in the aftermath.’
By the time the words left his lips he knew it wouldn’t work, then Mary said, ‘And I could just give everything to the media, call Heidi’s bluff.’
Alexis shook her head at Mary first. ‘It’s not a bluff. Nothing matters to her besides the company, her image, her success. Nothing. If she doesn’t have it, life’s not worth living. I’ve only talked to her twice but I know that for a fact. And she’s spiteful. If she knows she’s going down, sees the PR implosion, I’m convinced she’ll kill as many of her perceived enemies as she can before she goes. And by perceived enemies I mean company employees. Men and women working their asses off for a tyrant of a boss.’
Alexis looked at Mary to see if she disagreed with any of that.
Mary nodded slowly. She seemed to agree. And she’d known Heidi for years.
King said to Slater, ‘And as for your idea—’
Slater shook his head, cutting him off. ‘I know. That’s why I played devil’s advocate. You just can’t do that shit today, not in a city like this. At work there’ll be hundreds of innocents in the mix and cameras everywhere. Not to mention the police presence the moment shit hits the fan. And we need more work on Frankie’s end. If we just kill him, then all his fighters — the people he’s brainwashed — are in the wind. We still need to infiltrate, find out who’s beyond salvation, who needs wiping out. So we stick to the plan. We show up tonight. We integrate ourselves with his crew. We go from there.’
King nodded, and that was that.
Game plan set.
There was a long pause, then Mary said, ‘Who are you people?’
Slater couldn’t help himself.
He smirked.
King said, ‘Can you believe we do this for free?’
Part II
40
If Slater thought Hunters Point was barren during the day…
At night, it was a black hole. Closer to the coastline, floodlights illuminated the naval shipyard, but they only served to cast an ethereal glow on the horizon. Along the stretch of road that housed Frankie’s gym, the darkness was all-encompassing. The warehouse’s front doors were still open, and faint light bled out from within, but the surrounding blackness quickly swallowed it.
King pulled into the lot and killed the engine. There were three other cars parked. All old, all having seen better days. A Ford sedan and two Subarus. Slater thought back to Jace’s ride, wondered if all the coaches had bought Subarus together as a group deal.
Hot ocean wind whistled over asphalt as they climbed out.
Before they’d even made it through the doors, Frankie materialised at the front of the reception area.
Blocking the entrance.
They walked right up to him. He didn’t look armed. If he tried to pull a gun on them, it was his own mistake.
The bulbs glowing above and behind him silhouetted his profile. From the front, Slater couldn’t make out his features.
Cloaked in the shadow of the lot, Frankie said, ‘Before you come in, we need to have a talk.’
Slater said, ‘Is that so?’
Frankie turned to King, his shadowy face revealing nothing. ‘I didn’t get the chance to speak with you earlier.’
King said, ‘No, you didn’t.’
‘Your friend mentioned something about a lack of interest in the bright lights.’
King said, ‘We’re happy here. We don’t want attention.’
‘And why’s that?’
King said, ‘Shit that happened in the past.’ Then he added, ‘Allegedly.’
Frankie smiled. ‘Allegedly. One of my favourite words.’
Slater’s stomach turned.
Frankie said, ‘That’s music to my ears, boys. You have your pasts. I’ve got mine. Let’s think of it as…mutually assured destruction.’
Slater took a moment to hold down the anger that wanted to burst its way free. King took advantage. He had the better emotional control. With a face like a brick wall he said, ‘I like that. But it’s got to actually be mutually assured. You tell us your sins, we’ll tell you ours. That way we’ve got dirt on each other forever.’
Frankie’s silhouette hovered, statuesque. ‘You don’t hold the leverage here.’
‘No. But you obviously need our help with something unsavoury, or you never would’ve asked us here.’
A moment of bristling on Frankie’s end. Then, ‘You first.’
Slater had pulled himself together by then. He’d erected mental barriers, whole towers of potential depravity, so he had no qualms jumping in. ‘I’ve been convicted of rape. My friend here has done much worse, but he’s only been caught for aggravated assault and burglary. What about you?’
A glint of teeth as Frankie smiled in the night. ‘Thank you for sharing.’
‘What about you?’ Slater repeated.
‘You’ll find out shortly. But now that I know what kind of men you are…’
Slater tensed up, anticipating some reversal of morality. Frankie Booth, defender of the righteous, sticking up for the victims of sexual assault. Maybe he’d changed his ways after fleeing Boston, and this was all some giant misunderstanding, the name change a genuine attempt to start a new life, turn a new leaf.
Instead Frankie finished with, ‘…I know we’re gonna make a whole lot of money together.’
King said, ‘I like the sound of that.’
‘Come on in.’
He led them into the warehouse. Lightbulbs shone far above the wrestling mats, the space an empty cathedral of old sweat and blood. The fluids were cleaned and the surfaces disinfected, of course, but there’s that unmistakable leftover smell, faint but ever-present. The mats were unpopulated, likely because meeting in such an open area contrasted with the nature of the conversations that were about to take place. Instead, Frankie’s crew milled in the shadows around the suspended bags in the striking zone. The mezzanine floor overshadowed their features, but as King and Slater followed Frankie across the mats they made out the distinct shape of four men.
Two of them they’d never seen before.
The third was Carter Coombs.
The fourth was Danny.
41
King exchanged a silent look with Danny.
It was like the ground had opened up beneath King’s feet. He’d genuinely hoped to guide the kid toward the light. Maybe not from a single conversation’s worth of advice, but if they hung around California for a few days he’d thought about meeting up with the young man, trying to get his head straight. He should’ve realised that there’s certain conditioning that’s nearly impossible to break. Your dad’s a violent brute, you usually end up a violent brute.
So why should it be a surprise that Danny was here, doing this?
Danny sported a similar expression. It said something along the lines of, Don’t meet your idols.
He must’ve thought King, with all his worldly and poignant advice, was above a situation like this.
Evidently not.
So they shared their mutual disappointment as Carter Coombs regarded the new arrivals with a knowing smirk. The other two guys were in their late thirties. They hadn’t been at the morning wrestling practice, which meant they weren’t full-timers. King knew exactly the kind of men they were with a single glance. They both had skin so red it looked permanently sunburned, and maps of bulging veins across their forearms. Their shoulders were swollen, their deltoid muscles disproportionately bigger than the rest of their bodies. The fact they were in their late thirties gave it away, too.
They were over-the-hill fighters.
Tough guys who’d overdone the steroids through their late twenties and early thirties trying to chase the bright lights that, ever so steadily, slipped away from them with age. Now they were here, their dreams of prizefighting glory dashed, left to deal with the harsh sword of truth that was reality. It was the same with college athletes who don’t make the big leagues — NFL, NBA, NHL — although maybe not quite as visceral as fighting. If your MMA career fails, then it wasn’t just that you weren’t good enough at a sport. It’s that you weren’t enough of a man. Or, at least, that’s what these two would tell themselves. So when they had a chance to prove their manhood — namely, if Frankie tasked them with doing something sociopathic, violent, illegal — it wouldn’t have taken much of a push to tip them over the edge.
Coombs stared at Frankie as they all congregated beside the punching bags, which hung like frozen obelisks.
Frankie noticed the look and said, ‘What?’
Coombs finessed a toothpick between his teeth. ‘They know what they doin’ here?’
‘Not yet.’
Coombs shook his head, made like he was going to walk out. ‘Then I don’t want any part of this. They got snitch energy.’
All the way in on his persona, King got right in Coombs’ face. ‘Say that again.’
He spoke with all the intensity he could muster. Coombs froze. He tried to keep a placid expression on his face but he couldn’t manage it. Tension rippled through him, like his bones had turned to heavy metal.
King stepped back. ‘We’re not fucking snitches.’
Frankie said, ‘They’re good, Carter. I’ve got something on them. They wouldn’t dare talk.’
Carter tried to save face. ‘You sure about that?’
‘The question is,’ Slater said, ‘what are you going to do about it? What do you think you can do?’
Silence.
One of the older guys said, ‘I don’t like this.’
He sniffed and shook his head and turned to walk away.
King said, ‘Stay where you are.’
The quiet got sinister.
King glanced over his shoulder at Frankie, who nodded wordless permission.
King turned back to the group. He made sure not to look at Danny. He thought that if he did his façade might crack. ‘I’m Jason. This is Will. We’re part of this now, whether you like it or not. And we’re going to stay part of it — whatever it is — because we’re indispensable. Carter, Danny,’ — he didn’t make eye contact — ‘you two saw us at practice this morning, so you understand why that is. You other two meatheads will just have to use your imagination. Now, you got a problem with us being here, you talk to Frankie, but you ain’t walking. I’d imagine he’s got enough dirt on you to put you under the jail. So that’s that.’
The meatheads simmered with tension but they didn’t move or speak. They seemed to have got it through their thick heads that Frankie indeed had enough blackmail to keep them in check for the rest of their lives. Because of what they’d already done for him, no doubt.
Slater turned to Frankie. ‘So what are we doing here?’
Frankie cleared his throat, shuffled in place. Turned out that when it came to crunch time, he really didn’t like oversharing. He was probably getting more and more paranoid, the longer this racket went on. But he pulled himself together.
He said, ‘You’re going to go beat a man to death for me.’
42
Frankie’s words echoed off the concrete walls, carried up to the slanted roof.
King made a point of not visibly reacting, only changing his tone. ‘So it’s like that, is it?’
Frankie said, ‘If that ain’t your thing you can walk. I normally wouldn’t say that, but I didn’t vet you before I brought you here. I trust you’ll keep your mouth shut about this if it isn’t your cup of tea.’
Slater knew they couldn’t be too eager. ‘Not usually our thing when it’s unprovoked.’
‘How’s ten k each? Does
that provoke you?’
Slater looked at King for a beat, then turned back. ‘That’s a little low.’
‘Because you’re not going to do anything tonight. You’re just going to be there to watch. It’s a trial run. These boys will take care of the messy business. You’re there to prove you can stomach it, and if all goes well I’ll make sure you’re hands-on for the next one. You’ll get a pay bump for that. Twenty k each.’
No one spoke.
Frankie continued. ‘You do a few of these jobs for me, you’ll be worth six figures. That’s beers on a beach at a resort in Mexico for years. Maybe even a decade. You reckon that’s worth it?’
Silence.
Frankie said, ‘Not much attention in Mexico. No…bright lights.’
Slater said, ‘I don’t see a problem.’
King said, ‘Me neither.’
Carter and the two meatheads visibly relaxed, letting go of the breaths they were holding. Danny stayed tense as a metal rod. King refused to look at him.
He knew they both, in pointedly different ways, felt they had betrayed the other with their presence here.
Slater said, ‘What’d this guy do?’
‘Pissed off the wrong people,’ Frankie said. ‘And those people came to me.’
King said, ‘That happen often?’
‘More and more of late. Business, as they say, is booming.’
Slater said, ‘San Francisco seems a little pretentious for business like that. Detroit, I’d understand.’
Frankie cackled, ‘There’s no money in Detroit. People make billions in this town pumping out a single app. You think anyone takes their chances when there’s nine figures on the line?’
‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ King said, ‘but you don’t exactly seem like a professional assassin. There must be better men than us.’
‘There are. But they’re clean. Precise. They’re all about making it seem accidental. That sort of thing. We’re…the opposite. I run this gym and that’s the only thing I’ve got going for me, but turns out that gives me leverage. Because I can recruit helpers who hit like trucks, and that’s important when you don’t care about making it look accidental. I’m the guy you come to when you need to scare the living shit out of people, when you need to beat someone so bad that no one else will think about breathing a word of disloyalty.’