Now it’s his turn to cast his eyes at the table. “Jessica made me promise if I was going to find the persons responsible, I had to take you along.”
“Wha… wait… back up! Jessica made you promise what again?”
“She doesn’t know the full story of what I did for so many years but she suspects a lot. So she’s made me promise that before there’s any more bloodshed, I have to allow you to help me find whoever is responsible.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She seems to feel that, for lack of a better term, that… well, you know, you’re my conscience.”
I am dumbfounded. My sister thinks I’m the conscience of a sociopath? What in the rickets is she thinking? These are my thoughts, but I don’t give them a voice because at the moment I can’t find a way to say the words without them making me sound like a madman.
“So how does this work? I’m supposed to what – green light you killing your way across the valley?”
“Actually, I was hoping you could talk to Marcie and see if there is anyone in the area that has come to the attention of either Mesa County sheriff’s office or the Fruita PD.”
“How, pray tell, did you imagine that conversation going exactly?”
“Glad you asked. I found his car and the registration. The car is a rental out of Bozeman, Montana. And the rental papers are for one Carl Reiner.”
“As in the actor?”
“Pretty sure this guy is not the Carl Reiner. And I was hoping that maybe you could, you know, call her up and give her some kind of story of about a deserted car out near our place and see if she will help.”
I feel the tension growing in my jaw muscles and the heat rising in my face again, as the beehive waitress comes over to check on us.
“Gentlemen, is there a problem with your food?”
Both of us stare stupidly at her for a moment, wondering how she has materialized into our presence. Then we both look down at our plates and realize neither of us have touched our food.
I start to pick up my sandwich while Ronald starts to cut his steak. Neither of us looks at the waitress or at each other. We both ignore the fact she is standing at the table and waiting for an answer. Then, as if someone has reached out and flipped a switch, we both turn to her and say at the same time: “Nope.”
She stands at our table looking at both of us, not sure what the joke is. “Well then, will this be all?”
Ronald looks up and smiles. “Why yes, I believe we are all done here.”
She takes out the check and puts it down in front of us, and then turns on her heel and walks away. We both turn and watch her go. Then we both look at each other and break out into schoolgirl giggles.
“Awe rickets,” Ronald says with a grin. Then we both fall out laughing again.
Chapter 13
Freeze (aka Tommy Bones) had been watching the house of Ronald Jacobs for the better part of three days. Like Jimmy Dix, he had parked his car a few miles away and had hiked in to an overlook half a mile away. He had seen Ronald and another man come and go from the house several times but hadn’t seen the woman yet.
Big Max had given Freeze the same orders he had given Jimmy, with one major proviso. Find the body of Jimmy and make damn sure it was disposed of properly. When the two men had left the first time, Freeze had hurriedly gotten back to his car and followed them into town. He was careful to make sure Ronald was unaware of his presence. They had been to the police station in Fruita, which Freeze found odd considering Ronald was in the life. The two men had also been to a hardware store and a grocery store. He noted this in the report he was required to make every day until the job was done.
The woman hadn’t been seen. Max told him he would check with his contacts to see if she had left on a commercial flight or the Amtrak. So far, Max hadn’t been able to locate her either.
On the third day, Freeze had watched them leave. After waiting for an hour, he had snuck down to the house. He was careful about where he stepped so as to leave no footprints in the adobe dirt. He noted the wood over the shot-out windows and the other holes in the house. These had no doubt been caused by Jimmy during his attempts to kill Ronald and the woman. What Freeze didn’t know was whether Jimmy had gotten away clean or not. He had looked for the car Max had left him, but so far hadn’t found that either. Freeze assumed Jimmy was dead and buried somewhere out in the adobe desert, but hadn’t found anything looking like a freshly dug grave either.
Freeze was pretty sure the woman was dead because she hadn’t turned up and Max couldn’t find her through his contacts. He had tried to convince Max to let him kill Ronald and the other man, but he had vetoed that idea. Max wanted to know who the other man was before he gave the green light for a hit on Ronald and the other man. They had discussed ways to find out who the other man was but since Ronald and the other man were never apart, and because Freeze didn’t have a camera good enough to take pictures at that distance, he was told to wait for a FedEx package with a camera inside.
That was yesterday. Today, instead of spending another day in the cold February air, he was waiting for the camera to arrive in the warmth of his hotel room. He checked his watch and noted he had another thirty minutes to wait for the 10:00 a.m. delivery.
Freeze hated jobs like this. Normally he wouldn’t take on this type of engagement but because the target was Ronald Jacobs and the pay was in the mid-six figures, he had agreed to take it on.
Ronald was someone who would move him up into the arena of the greats. If he was able to take out Ronald and get away clean, then from here on out, money wouldn’t be a problem. He had brought along a good long-range rifle with a scope zeroed in at six-hundred yards. He would have preferred to take Ronald on face-to-face but Max wanted to take no chances, so the long-distance kill would have to do.
Freeze had rented a room at a local hotel under the name of Dr. Michael Studer. The ID and cards he carried were clean and after this job, the good doctor would simply vanish. Freeze never went into the field unless he was in disguise. He had learned many years ago anonymity was his best friend. In the age of facial recognition, he wasn’t going to take the chance on his face getting caught on camera. For this job he had chosen clothes that were a very drab brown, combined with a black wig and matching beard and mustache. He also wore glasses with no prescription to help hide his features. His five foot eight inch lean frame was nondescript and his face and hands bore no markings that would stand out or leave an impression.
He had spoken less than ten words when he had checked in and made sure that his room was on the first floor, near the back door, to limit his exposure to the front desk. The night before, he had called the front desk and had left a message for them to call him when FedEx arrived. Freeze peeked out the window to see if the FedEx driver had arrived yet. Nothing. He checked his watch again and saw he still had a few minutes before he was supposed to arrive.
His mind started to wander a bit as he thought about the unknown man who was staying with Ronald. He was pretty sure that the man wasn’t in the life, but by the way he moved and dressed, he felt to Freeze like he might have been a cop. It wasn’t unheard of for people in his profession to befriend a local cop so that they could keep an ear to the ground but when Ronald and Freeze had worked together several years before, he hadn’t gotten the impression this was an action Ronald would take. But then again, it had been several years since Ronald had been active, so who knew? People did the strangest things and he had learned a long time ago not to be surprised by the private actions of others.
His bedside phone rang. He moved away from the window and answered it.
“Hello.”
“Mr. Studer, your package has arrived.”
“Thank you. Is it possible to have it delivered to my room?”
“Normally it’s not, but I have a maintenance man here who could bring it to your room.”
“Thank you.”
“Be there in a few minutes.”
Freeze hung up the
phone and moved to the bed to put his wig on. He got it on just as there was a knock at the door. Freeze walked to the door and checked the peephole. Satisfied, he opened the door, smiled, and reached out to take the package from the maintenance man.
“Here you go.”
“Thank you.” And then he closed the door.
Freeze looked again through the peephole to make sure the man had walked away. Satisfied, he returned to the bed and opened it up. Inside there was an expensive high-end camera with a telephoto lens. The camera was flat black and sported no shiny metal pieces that would reflect light. When Freeze put a naked cover over the lens, the lens wouldn’t reflect any light either. This would ensure neither Ronald nor the man would see the glint off of the glass.
He put on the brown jacket and gloves and then slung the camera over his shoulder as he left his room and exited through the rear door. His cream-colored sedan was parked away from the building, near the dumpster. Freeze popped the trunk and made sure the rifle was still in there, then closed it, walked around, and got in.
Freeze started the car and let it warm up a bit before he backed out of his space and then drove towards the house in the desert. The house was only fifteen minutes away, but the spot where he had been hiding his car was an additional thirty minutes past that.
At just past noon, he arrived at the overlook where he had been spending all of his time watching the house. It looked like no one was home because he didn’t see Ronald’s truck anywhere. He settled in to wait for Ronald and the man. By 2:00 p.m. he was cold and irritated by the fact that they still hadn’t returned. He also began to wonder if they would make it back before dark. He cursed under his breath and silently promised himself that when this was over, he would spend some time on a nice warm beach somewhere. Maybe take some real time off and figure out how and where he would work next.
At 4:30 p.m. he had just made the decision to pack it in when he saw them drive down the makeshift road that led to Ronald’s house. “Damn it,” he swore. Freeze got the camera out and waited. Thankfully the glare of the sun wasn’t going to be a problem because it was behind him. However, because it was hanging low in the sky, he doubted there would be enough light for him to get a good clear picture at this range. He looked through the viewfinder and saw that he had just enough to get one or two quick shots off before it was too dark.
Ronald swung into the spot where he had been parked and they both got out. Freeze aimed the camera and shot off two quick pictures as the man got out of the passenger’s side. His face was perfectly framed for just a moment as he took the pictures. Both men reached into the back of the truck and picked up bags full of more groceries before they headed inside.
When he was sure that it was safe for him to back down the little slope without being seen he packed up and left his perch, walked the half mile back to his car, and headed back to the motel. Once he got there, he pulled the pictures off of the camera and moved them over to his notebook computer. Then he logged onto the wireless network and emailed them to a dead drop address for Max to download. Next, he called Max to let him know that the pictures were on their way.
Max thanked Freeze and said he would contact him in the next hour with the unknown man’s identity, provided Max’s contacts could find him in the system. But Freeze would probably have to wait until tomorrow before Max could make the ID known to his clients and then get permission for Freeze to kill the other man as well. Nobody liked loose ends, but killing someone whose death would bring down a lot of heat was worse. Freeze went to the small fridge in the room and took out the makings for his dinner, which tonight was going to be frozen burritos and a soda. Then he settled in to wait for further instructions. Tomorrow he thought Ronald and the man would be dead and he would be able to leave the adobe desert for warmer climates.
Chapter 14
The next morning, Freeze slept in till 8:00 a.m. Despite Max’s promise to call within the hour, his phone never rang. He thought about calling Max but decided against it. One of the lessons Freeze had learned over the years was to wait until you were called. He had known people over the years who had lost their patience and had called in for instructions, only to find out their contact was either under arrest or no longer among the living. Both results ended the same way, a trail of breadcrumbs that led right to their front door.
Freeze would never make the same mistake, so he waited. By 10 o’clock, Freeze was starting to think Max had somehow been compromised, which meant this assignment was a bust. Even though Freeze was fairly confident he was safe, it only made sense to abandon his current position and find somewhere he could hunker down and wait out whatever fall-out there was. He had just begun the process of getting his things together when his cell phone rang.
“Sorry it took so long to call,” Max said as a way of greeting.
Freeze stuffed a pair of socks in his bag, straightened from packing his suitcase and walked across the room to check outside for signs he was in trouble. Finding nothing, he said. “You have news for me?”
Freeze made Max nervous. Every time they spoke Max always got the impression he was being tolerated and nothing else. Max always found himself pacing around his condo, checking the street and his security cameras when they spoke. It pissed him off how paranoid Freeze made him. Like now, Max was wandering around to all the windows, peeking through his curtains just to verify that the bogeyman wasn’t going to leap out and say “BOO!” Only in the case of Tommy Bones, “BOO” didn’t quite cover it. Max took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then forced himself to return to his desk and sit down.
“The man in question has been identified as an ex-cop named Walter Walker. He was the cop down in Florida who looked the other way on Ronald’s last assignment. And he is the brother of Ronald’s wife, Jessica.”
“And…?”
Max was working very hard to control his breathing and his temper.
“Our employer has given the green light to you engaging him as long as his departure doesn’t bring about any scrutiny that will jeopardize our project.”
“What exactly does that mean?” Freeze asked.
“It means just what I said. If you think you can control his sudden departure without any locals taking notice, then do it. Otherwise, leave him alone.”
“The wife hasn’t been around. In fact, I don’t know where she’s located at the moment.”
“Yeah, my contacts haven’t been able to locate her. So maybe before he shuffles off this mortal coil, you could ask him where she’s at.”
“Any family in the area?”
“Records show their parents are both deceased and they don’t have any other family in the area. As far as their phone records go, we haven’t been able to locate any of those either.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning Ronald doesn’t have a phone that is registered in his or her name.”
“Figures.”
“Yeah, he’s a pro so my contacts will keep looking, but they aren’t hopeful.”
“Timetable?”
Max exhaled loudly into the phone. “Soon.”
“Let you know when it’s finished.” And then Freeze disconnected the call.
Max tossed his cell phone on the desk and then rubbed his temples. “Jimmy fucking Dix, you asshole, I hope you rot in hell!”
Chapter 15
After our lunch, Ronald drove us back to his house. The drive took us about an hour to make and during most of that time, we rode in silence. Ronald drove with one hand on the wheel, his head alternating between leaning on the driver side window and his head rest. I stole glances at him and was again amazed at how relaxed he was. If I hadn’t known any better, I wouldn’t have known anything was bothering him.
Me, I was a bundle of nerves. I kept shifting in my seat trying to look as relaxed as Ronald. My thoughts kept doing loops as to why I was here.
When I was a cop, there was always a purpose. My duties were clearly defined. The lines of morality and good and bad wer
e sharply defined. If I had a doubt, all I had to do was consult the penal code. There are cops and then everyone else.
But now I had no badge or the authority it carried. Ronald had lived his life in the black and was comfortable with the knowledge that his authority came at the end of the gun he carried. But not for me. Despite the booze, and the setbacks of getting fired and my divorce, I always drew comfort from the knowledge that I was on the side of the righteous. Now, however, I was sitting beside a man I knew had committed unspeakable acts of violence and had prematurely ended lives. I was unsettled by the notion that I may have stepped over the line and into a realm where good versus evil was a distortion of reality. This side of the line made no bones about the morality of killing and had long ago settled its own conscience of mortality. I felt a shiver of something akin to fear and looked out the passenger window in the hope that Ronald wouldn’t see my nerves begin to fray.
As the miles rolled by, my mind began to wander back to my childhood. The Mesa Valley of my childhood was stark and empty. Husbands went long stretches without a job and the economy had collapsed when Exxon had pulled up stakes and moved out in the dead of night. I remembered my dad weeping at the kitchen table, wondering aloud how they would pay the bills. My mother offered him comfort. Often times, Jessica would be awakened by the cries of my father and would come down the stairs in her pajamas. She would crawl up on his lap and wrap her tiny arms around his neck and cry with him.
Then I would feel tears on my cheeks as I realized I was crying too. During those days, Ronald and I would terrorize the town of Fruita as we cruised on our bikes in and out of traffic. Sometimes we would ride silently, coming up on the elderly who walked the sidewalks every day, either going to the Catholic Church near downtown or walking home. They would yell and shake their fists at us, but Ronald and I would just laugh.
As we pulled off the highway, I said to Ronald, “Take me through town, would you?”
On The Devil's Side of Heaven Page 8