by Mike Ryan
The Last Job
Mike Ryan
Copyright © 2018 by Mike Ryan
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
About the Author
Also by Mike Ryan
1
Looking in the mirror, it was an unfamiliar face that was staring back at him. Regret, grief, disgust, all were emotions that were foreign to him. Until lately. It started slowly. The first time he could remember feeling different was six months ago, when he terminated the wife of a prominent prosecuting attorney. From what he could tell, she’d done nothing wrong. But she was being punished for the work of her husband, who’d put away a powerful mob boss for thirty years, effectively for the rest of the sixty-eight-year-old crime boss’ life. When the decision was made for retribution, as was usually the case, his name was one of the first ones considered.
Eric Lamb had made a name for himself in the world of contract killing. He was considered one of the most reliable and dependable hit men available...for the right price. He aligned himself with no one and didn’t have ties to any organization. Even when employers had other men at their disposal, they still turned to Lamb. He was quick, efficient, and oftentimes invisible. Just what the job needed. Any contract given to him, was considered as good as completed the moment he signed off on it. He traveled throughout the country over the years, as well as internationally, completing jobs in the United States, Canada, South America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. He had over seventy-five confirmed kills attributed to him over the past fifteen years. Sometimes the jobs were done with quick precision, and sometimes it required a little more finesse, taking a month or two. But they always got done.
Over the past fifteen years, he’d been hunted by just about everyone. He was a known commodity, if not by name, then by the signature of his work. Over the years, he’d been pursued by local and state police, the ATF, U.S. Marshals, and the FBI. None of them had really ever got close to him. Stacy Dunn was the closest anyone had come. She was an investigator with the FBI and had been assigned to several of his cases and actually had him cornered once several years earlier, only to have him find a last-minute escape route through a secret underground tunnel.
For the longest time, the killings didn’t bother him. They were jobs, nothing more. But now, after getting back to his home in Arizona after finishing a job, he was feeling it again. This time, it was even more intense. He wasn’t sure why he was feeling this way. The job he completed was killing a snitch with a lengthy criminal record who had ratted out several members of his own gang. Certainly nobody innocent. Nobody worthy of feeling sorry for. But here he was, looking at himself in the mirror again, wondering why he had begun having doubts about himself.
Lamb splashed water on his face, hoping it would get him back to reality, but it didn’t work. Maybe it was the fact that he just turned forty years old. Perhaps it was just middle age playing tricks on his mind. He’d read stories about how some people were affected by getting older, reverting back to their youth. But he’d never really cared about his age much. Getting older didn’t really concern him, especially since he never celebrated his birthday, at least not since he was eighteen. It was then that he left the home of his abusive parents. A father who had continuously beat him every week since he was eight, and a mother who verbally berated him on a daily basis.
He tried going the college route, attending a community college until he dropped out to work full time, living on his own. After several years of living below the poverty line, he eventually found work as a driver for a delivery company, meeting a few other employees who had rap sheets to their name. After befriending the group, they taught him about guns, how to shoot, and how to survive. He learned to thrive amongst his newfound friends, finally finding skills that suited him best. Eventually, as the rest of his friends were killed or sent to prison, he found himself the last man standing and branched out onto his own. After several years, and a few high-profile murders, he became an internationally recognized name within the criminal element.
Lamb lived in a modest two-story house in Scottsdale, just outside of Phoenix. A few times a year, he thought about starting a family, but those were usually fleeting thoughts when loneliness starting creeping into his mind. Because of his work, finding a woman, or having kids, were things he always put on the back burner. Maybe something he could pursue when he was finished with the life that he led. He had enough money to retire, but there always seemed to be another job on the horizon, something else just around the corner. Plus, he figured he wasn’t exactly the cream of the crop. He didn’t think there were too many women looking to beat down the door of a man who had the job of retired hit man on his resume. So, he wound up just plugging along, keeping the status quo.
As Lamb finished walking down the steps, he heard his cell phone ringing in the kitchen. Without any urgency, he calmly walked over to it, already having a good idea who it was. There were only a handful of people who knew his phone number. And most of them only called for one reason, when they had a job they wanted him to do. The only exception was Ross Garner. Garner was the only person Lamb could legitimately say was a friend. He sometimes called just to check on how Lamb was doing, making sure he was all right. Garner was also Lamb’s intermediary and chief business partner. Garner had connections to almost every criminal gang and organization there was, and if he didn’t know, he had contacts who did. Not only in the United States, but all over the world. Garner usually was the one who set up the deals, passing the information on to Lamb, who didn’t like dealing with his employers directly.
Lamb found that by dealing with a third party, it was safer for everyone involved. But the main reason was that he worried about being setup after doing a job. He found that having Garner broker the deals eliminated that problem. Garner took a small percentage of the fee, as he did for many others. Garner never dirtied his hands directly with anything, but was mainly in the information game. He knew everyone, knew how to set deals up, and knew how to negotiate. He was a respected intermediary by all who knew him. But he also tried to stay out of the limelight. He was a family man and tried to keep his business and personal life separate.
Garner was in his mid-fifties and had graying hair. Actually, most of it was gray at this point Only a few strands of black hair could be seen anymore. Even his goatee was all gray. He and his wife had three kids, two of whom were in college, the third a junior in high school. He was usually a jovial type of guy, but was also very careful and meticulous in his business dealings. If anything ever smelled fishy to him, he always walked away. Or if something didn’t sound quite right to him, he let Lamb know so he could make the final call. He was based in Los Angeles as he loved the sun, the beach, and the California lifestyle. As Lamb got to his phone, he saw Garner’s name on the screen.
“Hey,” Lamb said.
“Hey yourself. How’d things go on that Anaheim job?”
“It’s done. Nothing to it.”
“Any issues or complications? Anything that might come back to anybody?” Garner asked.
“No, it was a clean job. That should be the end of it.”
“Good. I’ll let our employer know. Then they’ll deposit the other
half of our fee.”
“OK.”
“You all right?” Garner said, sensing that his friend didn’t quite seem himself. He sounded a little more sullen than usual. Something he noticed more and more of lately.
“I’m good.”
“The last few times I’ve talked to you it seems like you’ve had other things on your mind.”
“It’s nothing.”
“I hope so. ‘Cause you don’t have time for that right now. Might have two more jobs lined up in the next few days.”
“Where?”
“One’s in Texas. Houston area, I think,” Garner said.
“And the other?”
“Florida. I think near Tampa.”
“Tampa?” Lamb asked, remembering his last encounter with Dunn happened near there.
“That a problem?”
“It’s fine.”
“Good. I’m still working out the details, but I think I should have everything wrapped up and settled tomorrow. Both look like jobs they want done within the next week or two,” Garner said.
“All right. Just call me back when you have everything squared away.”
Lamb put the phone down on the black and white marble kitchen counter and sighed. Another job. He just got back yesterday and he already had another assignment. Part of him felt like blowing the whole thing off. Just tell whoever it was that he was no longer available and to get someone else. Those were words and feelings that he had never thought before. He could never remember a time that he was actually disappointed to get a job. This must be the beginning of the end, he thought. As he stood there contemplating his life and his work, he felt that the emotions he’d been feeling lately, it must’ve been a sign that it was time to give it up soon. Maybe he just wasn’t cut out to do this anymore. Though he never really enjoyed killing anyone, even those who most people would think deserved it, being as good as he was at it, made it more tolerable.
Later that night, Garner called Lamb back, letting him know that he sealed the deal on the Houston contract. The target was a wealthy area businessman who had gotten into a few deals with local organized crime organizations. Unfortunately for him, he decided to sweeten the deal for himself and took more of a share of the money than he was supposed to. He thought he could get away with it, but one of his partners caught wind of the fact that he was cheating them and didn’t take too kindly to it.
Lamb had an early flight to Houston the following morning, arriving at George Bush Intercontinental Airport at 10 a.m. after a three-hour plane ride. Upon arriving, his usual move was to go straight to the rental car that Garner had set up for him. Lamb very rarely packed extra bags, not wanting to take the chance of them getting lost in transport. After getting his rental, he sat in the car for a few minutes, studying the information that Garner had given him. Garner usually emailed the information, then Lamb would print it out and stick it in a folder to carry around with him so he could get familiar with his target. As a precaution, in case he was ever separated from it, he usually snapped a few pictures of the most important stuff onto his phone, that way he always had a backup if he should need it.
According to the information he was given, the most likely time to hit his target was after he got home from playing a round of golf, as was the man’s usual custom every Friday afternoon. That would mean that his prey would be getting home after five. That left Lamb some time to kill, considering it would only take about an hour to reach Douglas Wood’s house. Lamb drove to the Willowbrook Mall to pass a couple of hours, plus stop for lunch while he was there.
As he entered the mall through one of the department stores that anchored it, he passed the shoe department. He took a quick glance through the aisles as he passed them, stopping suddenly once he’d walked by the kids’ department, seeing something that caught his eye. He took a few steps back and stopped, looking down the aisle in question. He noticed a little boy, about four or five years old, sitting on the floor and crying. Lamb just stood there for a few moments, watching the boy, waiting for someone to come along and comfort the kid. He took a look in the aisles before and after the one the boy was sitting in to see if there was an adult nearby, but the aisles were empty.
Lamb thought for a minute about what to do. If this had been a year ago, he probably would have kept walking, not giving the crying child a second glance, not even giving any attention to a kid sitting on the floor of a store. But he was a different man now. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to admit it to himself. Now, a crying child sitting by himself bothered him. He couldn’t just walk away from someone who needed help, especially someone so young. Since children weren’t exactly his specialty, or something he had much experience with, he wasn’t sure what he should do. After thinking for a few seconds, he walked down the aisle toward the child. Not wanting to scare him, Lamb decided to just plop down on the floor next to him. He put his knees up and draped his arms over them as he looked over at the boy. The child looked back at him as he noticed the strange man sitting next to him, his face all wet from tears and his eyes s swelling with them.
“My name’s Eric. What’s yours?”
“Jonathan,” the boy said, huffing.
“Where’s your mommy or daddy?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop crying, OK? Don’t worry. We’ll find them.”
There must have been something soothing in the strange man’s words, as the boy tried to control his emotions, the tears temporarily stopping.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened? Where’d you see them last?”
“My mommy was looking at clothes and told me to stay put but I came back here ‘cause I saw these shoes I wanted,” Jonathan said, pointing to a pair of blue light-up shoes.
Lamb looked at the shoes and figured that might help put the kid in a better state of mind. “I tell you what, I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll buy these shoes for you, but that means you gotta stop crying, deal?”
Jonathan’s face lit up upon hearing he could get the shoes. “You mean I can get them?”
“You gotta stop crying, though.”
“OK.”
“OK. Let’s take them to the register and then we’ll find your mommy, OK?”
Jonathan nodded as the two of them got to their feet. Lamb grabbed the box off the shelf and held the little boy’s hand as they walked over to the nearest available cash register. As he handed the shoes to the cashier, he let the woman know there was a problem.
“Are you able to make a lost child announcement over the loud speaker?”
“Are you missing one of your children?”
Lamb laughed. “Me? No. I don’t have kids. This little guy seems to be lost, though. Walked away from his mother.”
“Oh. He’s not yours?”
“‘Fraid not.”
“And you’re buying him shoes?” the cashier asked.
“Figured it might make him feel better and calm him down ‘till we found his mom.”
“Aww, how sweet of you. What a kind and generous thing for you to do.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“You’re like an angel in disguise.”
Lamb laughed at the comparison, knowing how far away from the truth it was. “You’d be the first person to ever call me that.”
The cashier immediately notified the manager about the situation, who then made the announcement over the intercom, letting everyone inside the store know there was a lost child in the shoe department. Within a minute or two, they heard the hysterical screams of a woman running toward them, shouting Jonathan’s name.
Upon hearing the commotion, Lamb looked down at his new little friend. “Looks like your mom’s on the way, kid.”
“Yay,” Jonathan said, smiling.
As soon as the mother saw her lost child, she ran over to him and got down on her knees, hugging him tightly. She kissed him several times as tears rolled down her face.
“Are you OK?” the mother asked, stroking her son’s hair, happy to h
ave him back in her arms.
“Yeah.”
“Why’d you run away from me like that?”
Jonathan shrugged and frowned, thinking that he was in trouble. Lamb figured he’d help the kid out and answer for him.
“It seems that when you passed the shoe department he saw a pair of shoes he liked,” Lamb said. “When you went to a different department, he wandered back to look at the shoes. Then he came out of the aisle to look for you but didn’t know where you were or where he was either.”
“I’m so sorry, honey, Mommy should’ve been paying closer attention to you.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it too much. He’s fine. I guess they can get around pretty fast at that age.”
“And he hates standing still,” the mom said. “I guess most kids do.”
“Yeah. So I’m told.”
“Do you work here? Did you find him?”
“Well, I did find him, but I don’t work here. I was just passing through and saw him sitting on the floor crying,” Lamb said with a smile. “Figured he belonged to somebody.”
“I don’t know how to thank you,” the mom said, her eyes filling with tears again as she was overcome with emotion.
Lamb put his hand up. “No need. Just seeing that it worked out is thanks enough.”
“Well, thank you again.”
The mom took Jonathan’s hand and started walking away, but Lamb stopped them from going too far. “Wait a minute,” he said, grabbing the bag of shoes and walking over to her, handing her the bag once she was in reach.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Oh. A little present for your boy. It’s the shoes he was looking at.”
“Oh no. We couldn’t take this,” she said, handing the bag back.
Lamb resisted taking it, wanting them to have it. “No, I want him to have them. Getting lost in a big store like this can be a scary thing, I imagine. He was a brave boy. I want him to keep it as a reward, if you don’t mind.”