Aftermath

by Michael Kerr

  “It’s coming together, Frank. We have an ex-con spilling his guts. Looks like his boss was being blackmailed and put a contract out on a guy and his wife and daughter. There are a couple of loose ends; one of the hitmen, who is still out there, and a guy who appears to be protecting the women. We think that he may have killed Naylor. And we know that he warned the contractor off by breaking his arm and a few fingers.”

  “Maybe he was the one that initially maimed Naylor up here in my neck of the woods,” Frank said.

  “Could be. But why come down to Charleston to kill a man that he’d effectively taken care of? That’s one of the questions I need an answer to. I checked on the employee that got whacked, one Richard Jennings. His wife is missing. And his daughter, who was attending university in D.C., is also off the radar. Two fellow students were found murdered at the address the three of them lived at.”

  “Sounds like the wife and daughter are on the run with the big guy playing guardian angel.”

  “That’s my take on it.”

  “OK, keep me posted.”

  “Will do,” Charlie said. “Be careful out there.”

  Frank laughed. “You too, my friend.”

  Lynn saw the change in the man’s eyes: Could see the malice that lay behind his pretence. She didn’t believe a word that he had said.

  Sal sensed the vet’s thought process. He was attuned to other people’s moods and body language, and recognised the look of resolve that transformed the bitch’s expression. He moved fast, letting instinct guide him. People unused to extreme violence were never prepared to deal with it. And hesitation was a natural reaction.

  He grasped the stainless steel tray by its edge from the trolley next to the table and threw it in the same way that as a kid he had thrown flat stones out onto the surface of a reservoir to see how many times he could skip them.

  Lynn instinctively jerked backwards as she pulled the trigger of the gun. The bullet whined over Sal’s head and ricocheted off a steel water pipe affixed the wall, to then shatter the glass fronting a poster-size picture of her beloved golden retriever, Mindy, that had died of heart failure aged twelve, three years previously.

  Lynn made a loud coughing sound as the edge of the whirling tray impacted with her throat. The blow fractured her hyoid bone, and she collapsed backwards, cracking her head on the tiled floor as she began to convulse, unable to swallow or take a breath.

  Sal winced. The effort of moving so quickly and throwing the tray had caused the freshly sutured wound in his side to throb with pain. He maneuvered himself into a sitting position and stared at the dying woman. Her face was plum-colored, and her eyes were rolling in their sockets, full of terror, reminiscent of a steer smelling the blood of others as it was herded into a slaughterhouse, to be stunned before the butchers commenced to bleed it out and dismember it.

  Sal was entranced by the spectacle of the woman’s final moments. Her arms flailed, her legs thrashed, and the heels of her shoes drummed on the tiles as her bladder voided and the fight for life was slowly lost.

  Pleasure and pain, Sal thought. That was what life was all about. He had experienced both. He was savoring the unanimity of them at that moment in time: the pain of his wounds and the pleasure of watching the woman die in front of him.

  When the body became still, Sal took a couple of minutes to take stock. He wanted to sleep for a few hours; he was exhausted and knew that his body needed to recuperate from the trauma inflicted on it. But he could not stay here. He had no idea of the vet’s habits or plans. Maybe she was expecting company that evening, or was due to be somewhere. She could be missed.

  Getting dressed was a laborious procedure. Sal limped through to private living quarters at the rear of the surgery, to sit on an easy chair and rest a little from the effort, only to fall asleep cradling the recovered gun in his lap.

  It was pre-dawn dark when he woke up. He went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Ate some meatloaf and drank a pint of milk. His side and thigh were sore, but he felt a little refreshed. A plan sprang into his mind. He took out his cell and scrolled through his contacts. Found the one he wanted and made the call.

  Ritchie Jessop was a hacker; a ‘wizard’ in computer-speak. He made a good living out of being able to filch information illegally for clients. But he was no dummy. Didn’t push the envelope and mess with government agencies. Knew that they had people as good if not better than him to protect their sensitive data. And he wasn’t totally obsessed. Cyberspace was a place that he could immerse himself in for profit, but was not somewhere that he spent twenty hours a day in. He enjoyed using the proceeds from his endeavours on good food, expensive wine and beautiful women.

  When the phone rang, Ritchie checked the caller ID and answered.

  “Yeah, Sal,” he said.

  “Hi, Ritchie,” Sal said. “I need a location on a call I’m plannin’ to make.”

  Ritchie went over to his computer, sat down in the swivel chair and said, “No problem, Sal. Give me the number and let’s see what magic we can make.”

  Sal read out the number of Sammy’s phone. “How long will I have to keep him talkin’ for you to get a location?” Sal asked.

  “You don’t,” Ritchie said. “Have you got a rough idea where the subject is?”

  “In the state, most likely out in the boonies.”

  “Music to my ears, man.”

  “Yeah? Why?”

  “Because there are so many cell phone antennas in cities that to triangulate a signal is tricky, Sal. Cell phones have GPS chips in them, and those chips bleep every fifteen seconds. If the one that you’re interested in is in a rural area and switched on, I can probably give you a location within twenty feet.”

  “And if it’s switched off?”

  Ritchie’s left hand danced across the keyboard, and seconds later he said, “It is off, Sal, so I’m getting nada. I’ll flag it, and if it goes live I’ll get back to you.”

  “Thanks, Ritchie, you’re a star. I need to find this guy,” Sal said and disconnected.

  After checking through the windows all around the property and seeing no sign of life, Sal went out to the car and eased himself into the driver’s seat. The blood on the faux leather had almost dried. It was time for a change of vehicle, but not the vet’s. He drove northwest, sure that his marks would not head back south to the Charleston area. After ten miles he was in higher country on a narrow, paved road that was just a couple of miles short of a town called Davis.

  The single mailbox at the end of a narrow driveway caught his eye as he passed by. He rightly assumed that the pot-holed trail between lofty pines must lead to a single private dwelling, so checked his rearview mirror, then stopped, reversed back and nosed the car into the opening.

  Donny McGill was chopping logs for the wood-burning stove when he heard the engine noise approaching. He was almost a half mile from the highway, and lived in splendid isolation in a sturdy, one-story, sixty-year-old cabin that was constructed of old-growth round logs laid horizontally and interlocked on the ends with notches. It had a cedar shingle roof in good repair, and Donny had lived in it since shortly after his wife, June, had died of breast cancer nine years ago, and he had sold up the tract house in Morgantown and left city life for the peace and quiet of his mountain retreat.

  Donny was sixty-three, tall and lean, with what was labeled designer stubble these days. He had fought in Vietnam, to be medically discharged in seventy-three with a few gongs – including a purple heart – and a stump where his left arm had once been, before some AK-47-wielding gook dressed in black pajamas had blown it off. Maybe he’d been lucky. A lot of his buddies had wound up in body bags or suffered horrific injuries that had robbed them of any quality of life.

  Donny hated war, but couldn’t see a time in the near future when it would become obsolete. It seemed to him that the flames of religion, oil and politics kept greed, hatred and the pursuit of power for power’s sake burning like an everlasting funeral pyre.

&nb
sp; Sal pulled to a stop in the dappled morning sunlight of a new day. Took in the scene before him and carefully exited the car.

  Donny swung the axe one-handed and left it with the razor-sharp blade buried in an upturned log.

  Sal smiled and limped slowly across to where a man wearing a black and red check shirt and blue jeans was standing.

  “You look like you’ve been shot, friend,” Donny said. “Where’s the war?”

  “Down in Charleston,” Sal said. “I think that non-payment of a loan to the guys I borrowed from, rubbed them up the wrong way.”

  “So what can I do for you?” Donny asked, having already decided that the stranger was a liar and potentially as dangerous as a wounded bear.

  “I need to rest up for awhile, and could use a cup of coffee and some painkillers,” Sal said.

  “Well come on in,” Donny said, walking over to the cabin door and opening it. “I brewed a fresh pot of coffee not fifteen minutes ago.”

  Sal read the man. Knew that he was the type that didn’t care or want to know too much about anyone else’s business: a loner, but not like Logan, who seemed to enjoy poking his nose in where it didn’t belong.

  “My name’s Tony,” Sal said, sticking his hand out.

  “Donny McGill. Pleased to meet you, Tony,” Donny said, shaking the proffered hand.

  They sat at a timber-built table that Donny had put together himself, on polished rail back chairs that he’d brought up with him when he had quit Morgantown pulling a twin axle U-Haul trailer behind his 2001 sienna pearlcoat-colored Jeep Cherokee.

  “You gonna be alright?” Donny asked.

  “I reckon”, Sal replied. “I got the wounds treated and sewn up. How’d you lose your arm?”

  Donny took a drink of his coffee before answering. “Got in the way of a Kalashnikov. Two rounds tumbling around in your biceps is an attention-getter.”

  “Where’d it happen?” Sal asked.

  “Some paddy field in Nam. Long time ago now.”

  Sal knew by his tone that the old soldier didn’t want to talk war. Neither did he. “So is there a problem with me crashin’ here tonight?” he asked. “I can pay.”

  “No need to pay, Tony. Just don’t outstay your welcome,” Donny said. “I don’t live in a forest because I’m a social animal. I’ve got a shirt and pants without bullet holes in them that’ll just about fit you, a bottle of Tylenol to help ease any pain you’re suffering, and a bunk for the night. OK?”

  “Appreciate it,” Sal said. And he did. Being a paid killer didn’t mean that he hated the whole human race. In fact he couldn’t help but like the grizzled-looking man who was happy to help him out in his time of need. Trouble with America was that in the main folk would walk past you if you were dying in the street. It was a selfish consumer-driven society, which he used and abused as and when necessary. Being away from the city was beginning to grow on him. Not that he could live like some nineteenth-century mountain man, but he did like the peace and quiet: the calm that the near wilderness offered. Maybe a couple weeks a year in this kind of situation would be good for his karma.

  They made small talk and emptied the coffee pot. Donny set a fresh one going and started to cook a meal of eggs and bacon and grits and toast for them both.

  Sal almost wished that he could move on the following morning without having to kill Donny. Leaving a trail of bodies behind him was not something he’d planned on, but the fact was Donny could identify him, and he had never been in the habit of leaving witnesses alive. Not that the old man had witnessed anything, but Sal needed to take the Jeep Cherokee, and so he would reluctantly cap his benefactor after breakfast the following morning. Until then he would enjoy the present company and a few more hours’ recuperation.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Logan woke up fully alert, as usual. He had always made the transition from sleep to full wakefulness instantly, unless he had imbibed too much alcohol, which was something he had not done for decades.

  He glanced across at the LED display on the cheap plastic clock on the nightstand. It was 4.30 a.m.

  It had been the pressure of a sound that didn’t belong in the bedroom that had roused him. Just a faint squeak of hinges and the scrape of the bottom edge of the door catching on the stiff, short pile of the carpet.

  A gap between the two drapes at the window allowed a shaft of gray light to stripe the room at the foot of the bed. Through the murky beam passed the naked body of a woman.

  Logan didn’t move. Just closed his eyes and waited. Felt the weight gently depress the thin mattress next to him and heard the rustle of the sheet and shallow breathing.

  A hand gently touched his shoulder. He turned his head and looked into the low lit face of Sharon Jennings.

  “I need to be held,” Sharon whispered.

  “Maybe that’s not such a good idea,” Logan said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because compared to you I’m from the Jurassic age.”

  “That old, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So maybe I like older men.”

  “Everyone has faults.”

  “So just hold me, Logan. You don’t have to do anything else.”

  “I might want to.”

  “I might want you to.”

  “You do realize that I’m old enough to be your father.”

  “That’s not relevant.”

  “OK,” Logan said and turned sideways and slipped his arm under Sharon’s neck, around her shoulder. She turned inwards to him and put her hand on his chest, to run her fingers over the thin coating of hair.

  They remained almost inert for ten long minutes. It was Sharon that made the move and took it up a level. She kissed him on the mouth with her lips part open. He responded, and they went through the age-old process of foreplay before having sex, making love, or doing whatever tag covered the proceedings.

  “You sure you’re so old?” Sharon whispered breathlessly when it was over with.

  “You sure you’re so young?” Logan came back.

  She hugged him hard for two minutes, then slipped out of the bed and was gone. He smiled. Thought it was pretty awesome how the future kept rolling out of a dark tunnel like an express train to become the here and now and surprise him with new experiences.

  Logan got up at six a.m. and showered and brushed his teeth. He needed a razor. He was beginning to look like a version of Eastwood as the Man with no Name in the Spaghetti movies he’d watched at cinemas as a kid growing up. Maybe Clint and the military and then police environments had helped mould him into the lone drifter he had now become. He had never dwelt on what might have been in life. Had no time for ‘what if’ or ‘if only’. You took the cards you were dealt and played or folded. Your choice. Sit in or walk. He usually sat in and finished the game, whatever it was. He could look back with no regrets, no remorse, and be content to take any action he deemed necessary to resolve a problem. He did not consider other people’s take on what was right or wrong. Like everything else in life, justice was subjective, and he was in no doubt that he could discern what was or was not wrongdoing, and deal with it without the need of a legal system that he knew firsthand got it wrong too often to be relied upon.

  Rita was cooking breakfast when he entered the dinette and sat at one of the benches. The table was too low for his long legs and he felt cramped so got up and walked over to the counter.

  “Coffee?” Rita said.

  “I never refuse it,” Logan replied.

  Rita poured the hot, dark liquid into a mug and handed it to him.

  “Thanks,” he said, and went to the open door and sat down on the step to drink it.

  Tom Ellerson came out of his trailer, held up a hand in greeting and headed over to where his old pickup was parked in the shade of an oak tree that had been growing there since before the civil war.

  “You going anywhere near a store, Tom?” Logan called.

  Tom changed direction and angled across to the doublewide. “Y
eah, what can I get you, Logan?”

  “A shirt, pants, and some shorts and socks. Nothing bright. You can see what size I am. Oh, and a pack of disposable razors,” Logan said, handing Tom a fifty dollar bill.

  “No problem,” Tom said. “Are my girls still in big trouble?”

  “A little trouble,” Logan replied. “I’m working on getting it down to no trouble.”

  “I appreciate that,” Tom said and went on his way.

  Jerry was sitting up in bed looking like shit and feeling worse. His right arm was in a cast, and there were metal splints taped on his broken fingers. His usual air of total confidence was absent.

  “I’m Detective Garfield and this is Detective Adams,” Charlie said, flipping his gold shield for Jerry to see. “We need to talk, Mr Brandon.”

  “You took your time,” Jerry said. “Did you catch the bastard that did this to me?”

  “Not yet, sir,” Charlie said. “But you can bet the farm that we’re working on it.”

  Jerry sighed. “A fuckin’ giant walks into my office in broad daylight, inflicts serious injuries on me, and you can’t find him. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “He’ll turn up,” Russ said. “All we need to know from you is who he is.”

  “I’d never laid eyes on the guy till he showed up and did this to me.”

  “Strange,” Charlie said as he took a worn leather-bound pad from his inside sports coat pocket, opened it and withdrew a small ballpoint pen from a sheath stitched to the inside of the cover to take notes with. “Your receptionist, Marcie, said that he phoned you prior to visiting. Said his name was Johnson, and you asked her to put the call through.”

  “And when he showed up in person you had him sent through to your office,” Russ said. “Doesn’t sound like someone you don’t know. And you didn’t call him Johnson, you called him Logan.”

  Jerry could feel his left eyelid begin to twitch. It did that if he got too stressed or too angry. “I said that I’d never seen him,” he said. “And up until yesterday I hadn’t.”