The Professionals

by Owen Laukkanen

  “Knock-knock,” said Pender, entering the room. He set down the bags and stood blinking in the darkness, letting his eyes shift from Mouse to the television to the girl. “What are you guys watching?”

  “Springer,” said Mouse, not bothering to look up from the screen.

  Pender glanced at Tiffany. “How’s that working out for you?”

  “It’s fine,” she said, shrugging. “I don’t really watch talk shows.”

  “Mouse,” said Pender. “Get some manners, will you? Find something the lady wants to watch.”

  Mouse sighed, letting every last breath escape his body, and rolled over to face Pender. He was opening his mouth to argue when a knock at the door shut him up.

  It was a firm knock, insistent. Pender felt his stomach tighten. “You guys order room service?”

  Mouse shook his head, frowning.

  “It’s probably just housekeeping,” said Tiffany.

  “It’s not fucking housekeeping,” said Mouse.

  Pender put a finger to his lips and crept to the door. He peered through the peephole. It was dark. What the hell? Then he got it. “Motherfucker.”

  He was on the floor when the first shot came, crouching, crawling back toward the bedroom. The shot came through the door and then the door swung open with a sick crack, the deadbolt swinging useless as two angels of death stood silhouetted in the light from the hallway.

  “Get down!” Pender shouted, and Tiffany screamed, diving for cover behind the bed. The shots kept coming, flying past Pender as he turned the corner, bracing for the end as he hid against the wall and waited for the gunmen to come farther into the room.

  The first guy came quickly, a scar-faced kid in a Hawaiian shirt brandishing a big pistol and shouting in Spanish as he let shots go, tearing up the place. He fired at the bed and Pender heard Mouse cry out, and then Pender leapt at the gunman and tackled him from the side. The man cursed in Spanish and swung, firing wildly, shooting out the window as Pender held on for dear life. He wrestled with the guy, climbing on his back and clawing at him, grabbing for the pistol and feeling the guy’s strength draining, feeling like he might be winning. Then he glanced at the door and saw the big guy with the Uzi.

  The blond kid was climbing all over him and the man fired wildly, screaming in Spanish for Carlos to ice the motherfucker and now. He hadn’t expected so many people in the room, but he’d hit the girl, he thought, and definitely the scrawny guy on the bed. Then the blond kid ambushed him from the side, jumping all over him, fucking up his aim. But that’s why you brought backup, and why the hell wasn’t Carlos using that big goddamn Uzi already?

  The man swung around, the kid hanging on his back like a Superman cape. Carlos was still standing there, the Uzi raised, looking for a clean shot and yelling something about move, boss, move. The man moved, tried to swing the kid off his back, but the kid held on and wouldn’t let go, and the man swung around to face Carlos just in time to see the big guy get his face punched in by the hard kid from the street.

  He’d come out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, eyes murderous, and he’d surprised the shit out of Carlos, who was still fucking around trying to get a clean shot. The hard kid hit him square in the face, a knockout punch, and Carlos reeled into the wall, his finger on the trigger and the Uzi spraying bullets now, clean shot or no.

  The man felt the first couple catch him in the chest, then a couple more in the stomach, and then he stopped counting. The hard kid jumped all over Carlos, socking him, knocking him to the floor as the Uzi fired nonstop, catching the ceiling, the floor, the walls—and the man. He kept fighting the kid, barely felt the bullets, kept trying to swing the kid off so Carlos would have a decent shot, but the kid held on and the man felt his strength start to go, felt light-headed a little and sick, and he looked down and saw blood blossoming like crimson flowers on his Hawaiian shirt.

  The hard kid had Carlos lying on the floor, all bloodied with the Uzi spent and smoking beside him. The hard kid picked it up and turned to the man, looking him in the eye once more as the man crumpled to the carpet, feeling the pain now, feeling the blood pouring out of him.

  The blond kid stepped back and let him fall, and he did, heavy, onto the carpet, staring at Carlos’s beaten body and the hard kid beside, hearing the screams and the vague sirens in the distance and watching as the blond kid stepped over his body and walked to Carlos, pistol in hand. He stood over Carlos’s body, his eyes as hard as his friend’s now, and with his jaw set firm he held the pistol steady and put one shot between Carlos’s eyes.

  Then the man closed his eyes and let go.

  twenty-nine

  Tiffany was screaming. Tiffany was screaming and Mouse was moaning, and sirens were already starting to blare in the distance. Sawyer stood beside him, handling the empty Uzi, staring at the big guy and the kid in the Hawaiian shirt who lay bleeding to death on the hallway floor. Tiffany kept screaming. Mouse kept groaning. Pender dropped the pistol, the empty reminder of the gunshots still echoing in his head. He stepped over the Spanish kid and returned to the bedroom, a tableau of destruction: windows shattered, the TV, too, the prints on the wall all shot up and crooked. Stuffing lingering in the air from where the bedding had been torn to pieces.

  Mouse lay on the other side of the bed, Tiffany on top of him, her hand pressing down on his chest, bloody. She stopped screaming when she saw Pender. Mouse stared up at him. “Motherfucker,” he said. He’d been shot high in the chest, right side. Plenty of blood. Pender felt his knees go weak.

  “We gotta go,” said Sawyer. He’d pulled on a pair of pants and a T-shirt, and he stood now in the doorway. “We gotta go, now.”

  Pender stared down at Mouse. The girl was sobbing now. Mouse was calmer. “You guys go,” he said. “I’ll sit this one out.”

  Pender blinked. The world seemed to coalesce around him, and he was thinking straight again. “Forget it,” he said. “You’re not hurt that bad.”

  He lifted Tiffany to her feet. “Let’s go,” he told her. She let him point her to the door. Sawyer beckoned her along, and she came, slowly, eyes clenched shut as she stepped over the body of the Spanish kid, eyes clenched even tighter as she ignored what remained of the big guy. Sawyer took her in his arms.

  “Look for car keys,” Pender told him. “We have to move.”

  He turned back to Mouse, who lay on his back on the floor with his hand over his wound. He grabbed one of his shopping bags from the floor and took out a T-shirt. Tore it into a strip and knelt down over Mouse. He wrapped the T-shirt over Mouse’s shoulder and under his armpit, bandaging the wound as best he could. “All right, Mouse,” he said, inspecting his work. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  Sawyer was kneeling down, rummaging through the big guy’s pocket. He came up with a key ring as Pender lifted Mouse to his feet. “Trans Am,” he said. “I saw these bastards earlier.”

  He pocketed the keys and then knelt again, picking up the Spanish kid’s pistol and the big guy’s extra ammunition. He shoved both in his pocket and turned back to Pender. “You ready?”

  Pender knelt at his carry-on and pulled out a manila envelope. “Money,” he said, standing. “Let’s go.”

  They staggered out into the hallway. Sawyer led, holding the Uzi in one hand and Tiffany in the other. Pender hung behind playing human crutch for Mouse. The hallway was empty. “Back stairs,” he told Sawyer.

  They made it to the stairwell and labored down, Mouse breathing heavily, struggling. “Leave me behind,” he said. “I’m slowing you down.”

  “Shut up, drama queen,” Sawyer called from a flight or two below. “Takes a lot more than a flesh wound before you get to be hero.”

  They went slow down the stairwell. Pender felt like he was dreaming, running in place and never getting anywhere. Mouse leaned heavy on his shoulders and every step took an hour and Pender felt the panic rising. Stay calm, he told himself. Be professional. Get through this.

  They reached the first floor, and Sawye
r poked his head out into the hallway, then quickly back in. “Cops,” he said. “Down the other end.”

  “We take the back way,” said Pender. “Then we find the ride.”

  They burst out the back of the hotel, and Pender heard Sawyer give a little whoop as he emerged into the alley. A bright orange Trans Am was parked in back, angled out for a quick getaway. Sawyer slid behind the wheel and fired up the engine, and Pender and the girl helped Mouse in back. Pender climbed in and slammed the passenger door, and Sawyer peeled out, headed west, away from Ocean Drive and the Dauphin and the bodies of the two assassins.

  Sawyer drove them to the MacArthur Causeway, and they crossed back into Miami proper, Pender half expecting a roadblock on the other side of the bay and telling Sawyer slow down, blend in, act normal. There was no roadblock, but Sawyer slowed down regardless as Pender tried to calm down his heart.

  He turned around to where Mouse slumped in the backseat. “How you doing, buddy?” Mouse was breathing heavily, and he was pale. But he gave Pender a weak grin and a thumbs-up.

  “Still alive,” he said.

  Sawyer glanced at Pender. “Hospital?”

  “No way.” Pender shook his head. “They’d arrest us as soon as we walked through the door.”

  “Just leave me outside the emergency room,” said Mouse. “I’m slowing you down.”

  “You watch too many movies,” said Pender. “We’re not leaving you, Mouse.”

  “What the hell are you guys talking about?” Tiffany’s voice was rising. “Why aren’t we going to the hospital—or the police? Who the hell were those guys?”

  “Calm down,” said Sawyer. “We’ll explain later. We’re not going to the hospital.”

  “But your friend is dying.”

  “I’m not dying,” said Mouse. “I’m a drama queen. Don’t listen to me.”

  “He’s shot in the shoulder,” said Pender. “He’s in a lot of pain, and he’s probably going to go into shock. We’re getting the hell out of the area, and then we’re going to stabilize him. That all right with you, Mouse?”

  “Whatever you say, boss.”

  “All right,” said Pender. “Let’s get as far away from South Beach as possible. Find a place to lie low for a bit and ditch this car. We’ll keep an eye on Mouse, and if everything goes all right we’ll fix him up and keep moving. If it doesn’t, we’ll find a hospital in the county or something, bribe a doctor to keep him quiet. Cool?”

  Sawyer nodded. “Very cool, boss.”

  In the backseat, Tiffany leaned forward. She stared at Sawyer, and then she stared at Pender. “Jesus,” she said. “Who are you guys?”

  thirty

  Detective Landry led the two agents through the police impound lot in downtown Detroit, shivering in the constant rain. He turned back to his companions, one male, one female, one white, one black, one FBI with a southern accent and the other some kind of Minnesota state police, which didn’t make sense to Landry but he’d learned in this job there were questions you asked and questions you forgot to ask. “Van’s over here,” he said, leading them past a couple street-racer Hondas. “What’s left of it, anyways.”

  Agent Stevens followed the detective, wishing he’d remembered an umbrella. He hadn’t figured on spending much time outdoors on this trip, and besides, Windermere hadn’t given him much time to pack. In this miserable weather, though, Stevens would have traded in his toothbrush for an umbrella in a heartbeat.

  As it was, he was living out of a Walmart shopping bag since they’d left Chicago. After the McAdams and Tarver addresses came back as false as Ryan Carew’s, Windermere had checked on the Beneteau angle with her SAC and returned with instructions to proceed to Detroit. Now here they were in the Motor City, checking on this burned-out van, while back in Minnesota Nancy simmered quietly amid a mountain of casework and two needy children. “Fine,” she’d sighed, when he told her the new development. “You have any idea when you’re going to be home?”

  “After Detroit,” he’d told her. “I’ll be home after Detroit, I promise.”

  Now, marooned in the gray rain in some police lot in southern Michigan, Stevens could think of nowhere else he’d rather be but back in Minnesota with his sick kid and his busy, angry wife. He ran his fingers through his thinning hair and found it utterly soaked.

  Windermere moved closer to him, holding her own umbrella high. “Here,” she said. “Grab some shelter.”

  “I’m fine,” said Stevens. “Thanks.”

  “I insist, Agent Stevens. You’re representing the FBI, and you look like shit. Come on.”

  He shrugged and took the umbrella, feeling her press against him as they huddled underneath. Stevens could just make out the scent of her perfume as they followed the detective through the lot and toward the charnel-house remains of what had apparently been a Ford E-Series passenger van. The detective paused before it, gesturing like Vanna White at its burned-out hulk.

  The bodywork was almost entirely burned away, and what remained had been charred black in the blaze. The thing was destroyed, but the Detroit police swore it was a Ford and they figured it had probably been red once, too.

  Stevens circled the vehicle. “Plates?”

  Landry shook his head. “Stripped.”

  “We’re looking for a van that was sold in Minnesota. You guys run the VIN?”

  “VIN’s melted off. No way to identify the car.”

  “So how do you know this is your van?”

  “Night watchman at the Ford plant in River Rouge said he saw a red Ford van drive past on the night in question, followed by a gray Chevy Impala. Half hour or so later, the Impala drove back but the van stayed put. One of the victim’s neighbors puts a girl in a gray Chevy outside Donald Beneteau’s house the day he was killed.”

  “She have curls?”

  “That’s the one,” said Landry.

  “Watchman called in the fire?”

  Landry shook his head again. “Wasn’t on Ford property, so he didn’t think much of it until he got off shift the next day. Drove down the block on his way home and found the van burned out on a side street. He thought it was a drug hit and didn’t want to talk, but we got him.”

  “All right,” said Stevens. “So we make the van for the Beneteau hit. And we’ve got an Impala with our pretty girl inside.”

  Windermere spoke up. “You said you had a witness who saw the van drive off, correct?”

  “That’s right,” said Landry.

  “He didn’t see the plates, though.”

  “Nah,” said Landry. “Too dark.”

  “Huh,” said Windermere. “You mind if we take him for a spin?”

  The Birmingham witness took all of ten minutes to remember that the van he’d seen wasn’t wearing the standard Michigan plates but rather a white plate with a light-blue bar across the top—spot-on for a Minnesota tag.

  Then Stevens started calling rental car agencies. Struck gold with the Budget office at the airport. Sure, they told him, we rented a gray Impala to a woman named Darcy Wellman out of Louisville, Kentucky. Yeah, she paid with her own MasterCard. No, we can’t remember what she looked like. No, we don’t remember if she had anyone with her. Sure, we’ll call if we remember anything else.

  Circumstantial evidence, maybe. But way too big to be a coincidence. “Can you freeze that credit card?” Stevens asked Windermere.

  “I can do one better,” she replied. “I’ll have MasterCard alert us when the card is used. We can trail her from a distance.”

  “Let’s do the same with Ashley McAdams’s Visa.”

  “Already done.” She winked at him. “You’re dealing with a pro right here. Get in the car.”

  Now they drove back southwest on I-94, the wipers working double time and the traffic starting to thin as they passed through the outskirts of town. Stevens glanced at Windermere. “You going to tell me where you’re taking me?” he asked her. “You know something I don’t know?”

  “Maybe,” she replied, the hint
of a smile playing on her face.

  “Jesus, Carla,” he said. “Don’t play coy. What do you have?”

  “Just wait and see, Stevens,” she said. “Just wait and see.”

  Stevens sighed and sat back in his seat, watching Detroit pass by out the window. Whatever she’s got, he thought, it’s been a hell of a good day already.

  Her phone rang a few minutes later. Windermere winked at Stevens again and picked up. “Windermere.” She paused. “My man. That’s perfect. Can you text me the details?” Paused. “Already, great. I owe you.”

  She ended the call and turned back to Stevens, unable to hide her smile. “You ready for the surprise?”

  “Spill.”

  “We’re headed for the airport, Stevens. That was a friend of mine on the phone just now. Works at the FAA. I had him run some names for me.”

  Her smile was contagious. “And?”

  “Turns out a woman by the name of Ashley McAdams took a flight from Detroit to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport just a couple days ago,” she said. Her smile got wider. “You don’t think that could be a coincidence, do you?”

  thirty-one

  D’Antonio swore and hung up the phone. He lit a cigarette and stared out the window of the Escalade and swore again. Teach anyone to trust that motherfucker Zeke again.

  The news out of Miami was not good. The news out of Miami was fucking awful. Zeke had delegated to this kid, Manny, supposed to be a real hard-ass. Supposed to be good at what he was good at. Apparently, he wasn’t.

  “Told him bring backup,” said Zeke. “They must have run into a goddamn war.”

  As best as D’Antonio could tell, the two men had got themselves outsmarted by one skinny little geek kid who didn’t even have a gun. Word out of Miami PD was ballistics had found only two types of ammunition: the 200-grain bullets from a .45 caliber pistol and the 9 mm Parabellum rounds that according to the officers on scene probably came from a submachine gun. The 9 mm rounds were in Manny. The other guy had taken a shell from a .45 to the brain. Meaning either they’d shot each other or the skinny kid had managed to overpower them both. Without a weapon of his own. Impossible.