by Ben Sanders
He drove west on Lomas and pulled in at the university hospital and parked at a pay phone. He placed a call to Child Protective Services and explained the predicament of the little boy and girl he’d met that morning. He didn’t give his name.
Then he dialed the number Junior had given him.
Rojas took a long time answering, but he did pick up. “Yeah?”
Marshall paused. Sun hot on his neck and the vicious glare of it off the concrete around him and he felt the sudden weight of all these things he could set in motion.
He said, “I’ve got some stuff you might want to look at.”
THREE
Marshall
Twenty minutes northbound. Dawn now with the earth all coolly shadowed and domed above him this faultless blue hemisphere from horizon to horizon. He turned off the interstate and swung in beneath the overpass onto a crossroad. A thin lace of road dust strung crookedly in his wake. Just ahead on the right a few storefronts side by side: drugs, a diner, a hardware place. No vehicles in the lots out front. On the left and a little ways up a gas station. No customers and no movement that he could see. Waiting there clientless on that lonely stretch it seemed more a shrine to quietude than anything else. Like that was its purpose and no other.
He had a quarter tank but he parked up next to a pump and hit the lever to pop the flap. Through the office window the sales guy stood watching idly, arms folded, leaning on the counter. Marshall went in and exchanged pleasantries and paid for forty dollars’ gas. Back outside he could hear sirens. Southbound, growing louder and peaking as they crossed the overpass and then fading again. Two cars. Maybe for him, but he doubted he’d been seen.
He unscrewed the cap and hooked the nozzle in the tank mouth and set the lever to keep it flowing. There was a pay phone over toward the road. He took some change from the console in the Corolla and walked over and fed the slot and dialed Felix’s number at the house.
“Yeah?” Groggy, pushing away sleep.
“It’s me.”
“Hombre. That Cohen guy keeps calling me. I think you need to talk to him.”
Marshall said, “What did he want?”
“I don’t know. Shit, it’s early.”
Marshall said, “I think you need to get out of the house for a few days.”
“Why? You moving in?”
“No. There’re going to be some folks coming looking for me.”
“That’s all right.”
“They’re not really the friendly type.”
Felix thought about it. It took a while. “So what. I just gotta scram?”
“I’d recommend it.” A dull thunk behind him as the pump finished.
“Why? What have you done?”
“Not too much yet. But I think there’ll be some more in store.”
No answer.
Marshall said, “Bottom line is I’ve aggravated some people best not aggravated. So I reckon you might want to give everything a wide berth.”
“But they’ll know I’m me and not you.”
“Yes. But I wouldn’t really rely on that as a firm safety measure.”
“What have you been up to?”
“That’s for me to be worrying about.”
“Illegal stuff?”
“No. But it’s still worth keeping out of.”
“I gotta move all my stuff out?”
Marshall said, “No. Just yourself.”
“Ah, shit. How likely is it someone’s going to come poking round?”
Marshall pondered that, likelihoods always tough to firmly quantify. He said, “I don’t know. But even if it’s a slim chance I’d say it’s well worth avoiding.”
Which he felt was good advice, given that in his experience it was the slim chances that made things all the worse.
“Man. Look. Thing is, I got some stuff round here that I probably shouldn’t leave where people can see. Like, if people are coming by I mean.”
Marshall let a quiet settle, like giving the admission a bit of gravity. In his right hand his last remaining quarter. He flipped it and caught it a couple of times, like heads or tails would dictate what he said. “What sort of things?”
“I’m just holding on to some stuff for a friend.”
“A friend.”
“Yeah. Well. You know. Some of it may or may not be stolen. I don’t know.”
Marshall felt his cell ringing in his pocket. That blocked number a fairly safe bet. He let it go to voice mail. He said, “These aren’t the sorts of people who are going to worry if you’ve got a few extra DVD players lying round.”
“Yeah. It’s not really DVD players.”
“Whatever. Look. You need to be operating on the basis you’re going to have visitors fairly shortly.”
“How shortly?”
“Like, pack a bag, but if it takes longer than thirty minutes I’d hightail without it.”
“Shit. Sounds like you got some trouble.”
Marshall said, “Trouble’s selling it short. Thirty minutes.”
He hung up the phone. The console on its short pole with its shadow laid neatly slantwise and beside it his own, hugely stretched. He went into the office and got change for his two remaining singles and walked outside to the Corolla and popped the trunk. What a sight: the duffel with his fake samples, the 870 laid next to it. He removed Rojas’s .38 from his belt and dropped it on the bag. His hand came away grimed when he closed the lid. He dusted it on his thigh and walked back to the pay phone and dialed the U.S. Marshal’s office at the district courthouse in Santa Fe. Cohen wasn’t in yet, so Marshall asked to be put through to his cell.
When he picked up Marshall said, “It’s me.”
“Why are you so hard to get ahold of?”
Marshall said, “I’m out and about.”
“Right. I guess that’s your full-time occupation or something, don’t think I’ve ever caught you at home.”
Marshall didn’t answer.
“Where you callin’ from? It’s a funny-lookin’ number.”
“I’m at a pay phone.”
“Anyone listening?”
“I don’t think so. But you’re the government, you tell me.”
Cohen paused and said, “Whenever I try the house it’s that Felix feller who answers.”
“He’s my tenant.”
“Right. I think the idea when the feds give you a house is that you actually live in it. Generally safest, as far as staying alive goes.”
Marshall said, “I can look after myself.”
“Someone’s last words, I’m sure.”
Marshall didn’t answer.
Cohen said, “I think you and I need to sit down together. Sooner rather than later would be best. I’ve got time this morning.”
Marshall leaned on the phone box, taking his time so he’d sound patient. He said, “Or you could just leave me alone.”
Cohen laughed. “It doesn’t work like that, I’m afraid. We need to sit down.”
Some real firmness in that last bit. His cell phone started ringing. Blocked number. He could guess the gist of the message: You’re a dead man.
Marshall said, “Let me call you back.”
FOUR
Wayne Banister
Forty miles west of Albuquerque on I-40, just south of the Tohajiilee Reservation. No cloud cover and approaching summer, it wouldn’t be hard to list places he’d rather be. Come midday and it would hit one hundred. Hell would be jealous.
They’d provided GPS coordinates for the rendezvous. The machine in the rental knew the way. He followed a dirt road north off the 40. If you could call it a road. Just wheel ruts wending through the undulations. A gentle arc this way and the other, one slope to the next. What a landscape, might as well be Mars.
He crested a shallow rise and below him he saw two vehicles parked nose-to-tail: a Bentley Continental coupe, and a Cadillac Escalade tight in behind. Black paintwork dulled by powdered grime. The Bentley’s driver’s door was open. A guy in the seat with a thumb hooked in the bottom of th
e wheel and one foot on the ground outside. Another guy in a T-shirt and wraparound shades leaning with arms folded against the rear door of the Caddy.
Wayne stopped thirty feet away. The GPS unit lost his position. They must have been running signal jammers. He cut the motor. The dials all collapsed in unison. A short, expectant quiet, and then the guy by the Cadillac unfolded his arms and walked over. His gait didn’t fit him: a smallish man trying to fill a big swagger. Wayne wound down his window. A thin lip of dust accumulated at the sill. The guy leaned a hand on the roof and ducked his head to Wayne’s level. A big loop of sweat beneath his arm. Below the black lenses his cheeks were honeycombed with old acne scars. Shape of a gun on his hip under the T-shirt.
“How you doing?” There was alcohol on his breath.
Wayne said, “Good.”
“You carrying?”
Wayne nodded. “Shoulder and ankle.”
“You’ll need to lose them before you see Mr. Frazer.”
The guy beckoned him out of the car. “Just step out slowly and I’ll take them off you.”
Wayne obliged. The guy patted him down and took the SIG from his shoulder rig and then crouched and removed the .22 from the ankle holster. He stood up and moved away a pace and sighted the SIG on the Cadillac, one-handed grip, frame tilted sideways.
“Nice piece. Good weight on these things.”
“Yeah.”
The guy opened the rear door of the rental and tossed the guns on the seat. “Revolver guy, myself. Don’t have to worry about hunting for brass in the heat of the moment.”
He smiled, as if all his heated moments got very hot indeed. A good spread of gold in his front teeth. Wayne didn’t answer. The guy gestured at the Bentley. “Go on round to the passenger side.”
Wayne walked around in front of the coupe. The guy in the driver’s seat didn’t seem to notice. His trouser leg had hiked above his sock, revealing a thin band of flesh.
Wayne opened the passenger door and slid in and closed it behind him. With the driver’s door open a warning tone was chiming patiently, but the man beside him seemed unaware of it. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Wayne wondered why he didn’t just seal himself in and run the air-con.
The guy said, “So you’re the Dallas Man.”
“That’s what they call me.”
The guy nodded, as if taking the measure of the name. The Bentley’s interior was plush: all tan leather, sharply aromatic. “I like it. Got a certain something about it, you know?”
He clicked his fingers gently. “Dallas Man, Dallas Man.” Not a local accent.
Wayne didn’t reply. Ding, ding, ding, ding—
The guy said, “You can call me Mr. Frazer.”
“All right.”
The guy smiled, hiked a thumb at him. “Kinda funny. You cleanup guys are always so paranoid about being seen or whatever. So why the fuck you go around in a suit like that, coming into summer?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
Frazer laughed. “Yeah. But I’m driving a Bentley. You’ve got that thing. People see the suit/car combo, they’re gonna think out-of-towner, you know?”
“Out-of-towners are pretty ubiquitous.”
The guy shrugged. “Yeah, well.”
He smoothed a hand across the top of the wheel, gestured through the windshield. “I hope you like our little meeting spot. We got all sorts of jammer shit in the truck so you can’t be listened in to. It’s all real fucking fancy. Tell you what, thirty years ago it used to be easy to break the law in this country. Now they got surveillance that’ll blow your mind. Satellites, tap your phones, whatever. Place’s gone to the dogs, right, Chino? People’s liberties, just, sayonara.”
The guy by the Cadillac said, “Yeah, Mr. Frazer.”
Frazer nodded to himself like he’d just imparted some deep wisdom. He looked close to sixty. Silver hair combed back off a receding hairline. A thick handlebar mustache that dripped down to a thick neck. Top button of his shirt open to accommodate it. Under his suit jacket he wore a leather shoulder rig, butt of a revolver visible. Maybe a .357.
Wayne said, “You got some work for me?”
Frazer looked at him. Sun still low, and on the cleared ground around them the shadows from the hills lay in wide curves. Ding, ding, ding, ding. “Thought with a name like that you’d be out of Texas. But you sound East Coast. New York or something.”
Wayne said, “I’m not from around here.”
“What’s your background, Special Forces or something?”
“I can’t really go into it. It’s just an operational safety thing.”
Frazer shrugged it off. “Just curious. I guess if you were shit I wouldn’t have heard of you. Or maybe I would, but for different reasons.” He laughed.
Wayne didn’t answer. Big arcs across the windshield where the wipers had cleared dust.
Frazer brushed something off a lapel. His expression went solemn. Getting down to business. He said, “I want a takedown of a rival operation.”
“Okay.”
Quiet a moment, like letting the implications settle in. Ding, ding, ding, ding—
Wayne said, “Takedown, or takeover?”
“Takedown. As in, I want people dead.”
“All right. How many targets are we talking?”
Frazer thought about it. “I don’t know. It kinda depends.”
Wayne waited.
Frazer said, “Look, situation is, I’m trying to broaden my operation a little, get some stuff into New York.”
“And you’re facing some resistance.”
“Well, yeah. And it’s not all that polite, either. I got stock gone missing, guys gone missing, ending up chopped. And when I say chopped I mean, you know.”
He mimed starting a chain saw.
“I had two guys show up in pieces. Brought you the photos, holy shit. Everyone’s doing the whole slice-and-dice thing these days. But it’s ridiculous really, as if you can just scare me off, and I’ll go try something else. I’ve been doing this for thirty years.”
He stroked his mustache, checked his rearview mirror. Chino was walking a big counterclockwise loop of the cars. “It’s just fucking savage.”
Wayne said, “So who am I looking for?”
“I only got rumors at this stage.”
“Rumors will do.”
Frazer looked out his open door. “Apparently the pushback is from some guy called Patriarch. Or the Patriarch or something. I don’t know. It’s some clever Web-based system where he can control everything anonymously and sort of keep back from it a bit. Guy I know reckons he’s actually real young, like twenty, twenty-five maybe. Like, imagine that. Some fucking kid running an op where he’s got guys running round doing shit with chain saws. Arrogance of some people. Just blows the mind.”
“So you want him gone as well?”
“Well, yeah. I want fucking everyone gone. The people on the street actually stopping it coming in, and then whoever’s calling the shots. Christ, this thing. It’s put my blood pressure up about fifty points, I swear. Almost need a tire gauge to check it.”
Wayne didn’t answer.
Frazer said, “Look, I’m not after some showy vengeance murder or anything like that. This is all just business to me. I’m not looking to make anyone pay or regret or anything. I just want them out of the way, because it’s costing me a lot of money.”
Ding, ding, ding, ding. Chino was coming up alongside them, off to Wayne’s right.
Wayne said, “We’d have to negotiate my fee scheme.”
“Why’s that?”
Chino rounded the front of the car. Ding, ding, ding, ding.
“Normally I charge on a per-hit basis. But if we’re talking a long-winded thing where I have to do a bit of digging, it could drag on a long time. I’ll need to have a think about it.”
“All right.”
“It really depends on what their security’s like. If the guy really does have a safe, anonymous system going it could be hard to
pin him down.”
“Yeah, well. Sooner the better basically. It’s all just lost profit.”
Frazer paused and looked through the windshield. Lips slightly pursed like he was choosing words carefully. He said, “It just sounds like he’s got a pretty cutthroat game plan up and running, and I think it would be good to get in and disestablish it before he starts thinking he’s dealing with sissies. You know?”
Chino coming down the left-hand side. Ding, ding, ding, ding—
Wayne said, “Yeah. I understand.”
“So is this something you’re going to be able to look at for me?”
“Normally I would.”
Frazer glanced at him. “But?”
Chino approaching that open door.
“It’s kind of a conflict of interest.”
“How so?”
Ding, ding, ding, ding—
Wayne leaned suddenly and trapped Frazer against the seat with his left arm, and with his right drew the revolver from inside Frazer’s jacket and sighted on Chino one-handed and squeezed the trigger twice, a clean double-tap. Confines of the vehicle, the sound was colossal. Frazer tensed and shut his eyes, recoiled against the flash, cried out mutely beneath the blasts.
Chino caught both rounds. A tight group through the armpit. He was dead midstep. Lifeless form toppling and Wayne, still calmly in the moment, tracked the fall and fired a third time and shot him through the head.
Blood mist and a thump as he met the ground and a shallow wave of dust issued radially. Wayne eased himself upright and settled back in his seat. The leather creaked with the motion. He laid the gun on his thigh. Colt Python, chambered for the .357 Magnum. Smoke rose off the muzzle.
Ding, ding, ding, ding.
Frazer still crushed back against his seat, shock keeping him pinned there. Face averted from the horror and his cheek pressed to the headrest. Arms raised and hands clawed, some futile don’t-hurt-me gesture.
Wayne waited.
Dignity returned gradually. Frazer lowered his hands, turned and faced forward. Breath heaving, face a shade paler than a moment ago. He passed a sleeve across his mouth and risked a glance outside the car. His backup man just dumped there, inanimate flesh and bone. Only movement his blood as it left him.
“Jesus. You killed him.”