Ghosts

by Matt Rogers

  ‘I asked what you said to her.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  Ray stopped six feet short of them, and one of his bushy eyebrows went sky-high. His stare was horrifying. ‘Are you playing games with me, boy?’

  ‘Keith…’

  ‘What’d you say to her?’

  ‘She said she was scared. I told her to shut up.’

  Ray turned to Alexis, getting a good look at her up close for the first time. ‘Oh, my girl. There’s no need to be scared. Alan, get those cuffs off her.’

  He complied, and she rubbed her raw wrists, but it wasn’t any sort of victory. Everyone around her had guns, and outweighed her by dozens of pounds.

  She kept her mouth shut.

  Ray said, ‘Do you speak, Alexis?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There we go,’ he said, still keeping his distance. ‘Did you hear what I said?’

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘So why are you scared?’

  ‘Why do you think?’

  Now both eyebrows went up. He put his hands in his pockets and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Wouldn’t have a clue. After all, we’ve met before, haven’t we? Apparently you’ve flirted with me. Apparently I’ve taken you to drinks.’ He let the silence drag out. His eyebrows stayed raised. ‘It’s just odd, isn’t it? I’m seriously having trouble remembering. I feel like I’d remember having all that fun with a lady as beautiful as you…’

  ‘I wouldn’t go within ten feet of you.’

  ‘Oh?’ he said. ‘Then why the fuck are you dropping my name around town?’

  If King and Slater had taught her anything, it was that sometimes a last resort meant deliberately generating chaos.

  You only get one shot at this, she thought.

  Make it count.

  She said, ‘I never spoke your name.’

  The eyebrows dropped. He narrowed his eyes.

  His expression said, Come on, honey. We all know you did.

  She said, ‘You want the truth?’

  ‘That’s why you’re here,’ Ray said. ‘I’ll get it out of you. Whatever it takes. And then I might have my way with you for all the trouble you’ve caused me.’

  ‘Then ask Mr. Limp-Dick Alan Ward over here,’ she said, suddenly furious. ‘He’s covering for the fact he can’t keep his stupid mouth shut.’

  She physically felt Ward freeze beside her.

  Ray hesitated. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Look into my eyes,’ Alexis said. ‘I’m sure you’re a good judge of character. I’m sure you can tell if I’m lying. I’d never heard your name before this idiot pulled me over and started practically drooling over me. He started throwing stories around. I didn’t know which ones were true and which weren’t. He asked me if I wanted to hear a crazy tale, too crazy to be true. I said “Sure,” because I didn’t want a ticket. He then goes on to tell me all about you and some pimp called Armando Gates who operates out of a club called Won’s? Wan’s? I didn’t care about any of it, and I still don’t. Now ask me what a “beautiful” girl like me would be doing with any of that information in the first place. I don’t want anything to do with this, so the sooner you handle your business with the loudmouth next to me the sooner I can be on my way.’

  ‘Whoa,’ Ward started, ‘whoa, whoa, whoa…’

  Silence.

  Ray looked at him with barely suppressed rage. ‘Alan…’

  ‘Keith, she’s full of shit!’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Keith, come on…’

  ‘Why don’t you come take a walk with me?’

  The atmosphere palpably shifted.

  Alexis was tight with tension.

  There were murderous undertones in the air.

  37

  King drove.

  Violetta rode shotgun.

  Slater was more than happy to take the back seat. It meant he could keep his SIG trained on Gloria Kerr’s face. That sort of satisfaction only came around every once in a while. He was looking for a reason to pull the trigger.

  They’d found the five hired thugs right where they’d left them, nursing their wounds on the kerbside out front. Four of them up in seated positions, knees to their chests, and one still sprawled on his back, conscious but still half out of it, staring up at the sky like he’d rather be anywhere else. They’d all met Slater’s eyes one by one, their faces bloody and swollen, and he’d said, ‘Get up. I dare you.’

  No one had risen to the occasion.

  So King roared out of the lot unimpeded, and the four of them were off the premises before any sort of police presence materialised.

  Slater handed Kerr a phone, the barrel of the SIG unwavering. ‘You’re going to make sure everything that just happened stays quiet.’

  ‘And if I don’t?’ she said.

  He pressed the gun to her temple. ‘Nothing would make me happier.’

  She’d been in enough confrontations to sort a truth-teller from a bullshitter. She deemed it best to stay alive, punched in a number and said, ‘Eddie?’

  An unenthusiastic reply came down the line.

  One of the henchmen, his head probably throbbing.

  Kerr said, ‘Tony and Eric are in my office. Contact the clean-up crew. If anyone comes round asking questions, you know what to do. Nothing happened.’

  There was something that sounded like, ‘Are you okay?’

  Slater took the phone away from her ear and killed the call.

  Kerr said, ‘Where are we going?’

  King said, ‘Hood her.’

  Violetta shrugged her suit jacket off and passed it over to Slater. He put the gun between his feet, trusting his ability to neutralise Kerr if she got ambitious, then wrapped the jacket around her face and tied it tight behind her head, blinding her.

  They drove in silence back to the estate. King looped all over the place to ensure Kerr stayed in the dark, even if she knew the streets like the back of her hand. When they finally arrived at the Ridges, King drove the BMW straight into the garage and lowered the roller door with a key fob.

  They all piled out.

  Slater led Kerr straight to a spare room — empty, windowless, with thin carpet on the floor — and used two full rolls of electrical tape to cocoon her arms to her sides and her legs together. He left the jacket on her face. She could breathe, which was more than she deserved. She wasn’t going anywhere. She was mummified.

  He rendezvoused with King and Violetta around the kitchen island.

  Violetta said, ‘I know you’re angry.’

  ‘Her daughter,’ Slater said. ‘What the hell is this?’

  ‘You’ve seen worse,’ King said.

  Slater’s past flashed before his eyes in a split-second kaleidoscope. All the horrors he’d witnessed, all the depravity he’d eradicated. He said, ‘Yeah, I have. But still…’

  ‘We’ll deal with her in due course,’ Violetta said. ‘There’s a bigger problem right now.’

  Slater knew full well.

  He’d been trying not to think about it until Kerr was properly subdued, but now it consumed him. The emptiness of the driveway. The lack of contact.

  He said, ‘Alexis is compromised.’

  His guts twisted into a knot.

  King said, ‘She hasn’t hit the button. There’s a chance she’s fine.’

  Violetta shook her head. ‘She won’t have been able to.’

  Slater put his elbows on the countertop and hunched over.

  ‘She called you,’ Violetta said. ‘Before she went radio silent. What’d she say?’

  His eyes inches from the surface, he said, ‘She seduced a junior officer. That’s what she told me. He told her everything about Ray and Gates.’

  ‘So she got snatched by someone after that?’

  ‘Unless the cop got hinky,’ Slater said. ‘Unless Ray’s got an unofficial system in place. Like, “You hear my name, you let me know.”’

  ‘Are you tracking her phone?’ King said.

  Violetta already had her lapt
op in front of her. She said, ‘It’s on Blue Diamond Road. It’s not moving.’

  Slater’s heart sank.

  She seemed to notice. ‘It’s a busy road, Will. They wouldn’t dump her body there. They threw her phone out the window.’

  ‘The panic button,’ Slater said. ‘You can track that, right?’

  ‘Not until she activates it. Then the GPS in the fob goes live.’

  ‘What sort of shitty setup is that?’

  ‘The system is stock-standard,’ Violetta said. ‘I only store-bought them recently. I haven’t had time to customise the software.’

  He exhaled.

  Violetta said, ‘The button isn’t exactly discreet. They would have thrown it out with the phone.’

  King said, ‘So we take things up a notch.’

  Violetta stared at him.

  So did Slater.

  King said, ‘We get Kerr to make calls.’

  Violetta said, ‘She won’t do that willingly. We might have to use … methods.’

  Slater said, ‘I volunteer.’

  A poignant silence consumed the house. It was a dark road, but Slater had walked down it many times before, and he’d do anything to get Alexis back.

  Anything.

  A phone started ringing.

  Not King’s, not Slater’s, not Violetta’s.

  Slater’s gaze snapped to the left. He spotted the source. King’s burner phone from the night before, thrown to the side of the kitchen island, resting near the edge. It vibrated against the marble.

  Which meant it could only be one number.

  King went to it.

  He picked it up and looked at the screen.

  He said, ‘It’s Gates.’

  38

  ‘I’ve got it recorded!’ Ward blurted.

  It cut through the quiet like a knife.

  Alexis thought, Oh, shit.

  Ray let everything go quiet again.

  It sure kept Ward talking.

  ‘It’s on my body-cam,’ he babbled. ‘I turned it off, but before I did she asked me about you. It’s right there on tape. I’ll prove she’s lying. There’s no way I’d bring you up to a nobody like her. Or to anyone, for that matter.’

  ‘Why did you turn your body-cam off?’

  Ward covered for himself nicely. ‘I assumed you didn’t want any mention of yourself on file. As soon as she mentioned you I shut it down, but I still have the video. You can see her tell the drink anecdote, and then ask about you, and then it goes to black. I did the right thing, Keith.’

  Ray stared at him. ‘You’re telling the truth. I can tell.’

  ‘I know I am,’ Ward said. ‘The footage is out in my car.’

  Ward’s voice shook, but a little colour had returned to his face. He was steadily realising how narrowly he’d avoided getting beaten to death for his supposed betrayal.

  Ray turned to her. ‘Which means you’re lying.’

  Alexis thought, That’s it.

  I’m done.

  She’d squandered what little goodwill she had with Ward, and now she was alone in this horrid place. Destined to suffer and die as the lies she spun unravelled. It was inevitable. Ray would break her. He probably wouldn’t even need to touch her. If he chained her to a radiator for a few hours and left her to think about how painful things might get, she’d wilt under the pressure. She was objective enough to know her limitations.

  She couldn’t withstand pain like King and Slater.

  No one could.

  She remembered the panic button.

  She shot a sideways glance at Ward, but he was still fixated on Ray. The fear still hadn’t left his face. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. But as soon as he calmed down, he’d recall what he’d done for her, and he’d yank that lifeline away as fast as he could.

  Because she’d almost gotten him killed for something he didn’t do.

  She went for her pocket.

  Ward and Ray were still simmering, cooling off from the heated exchange, dissipating the tension. It took them longer than it should have to notice her digging her fingers into her jeans, searching, probing…

  She touched the side of the key fob.

  Ray saw what she was doing and lunged for her.

  Ward didn’t. He was still too shocked.

  Ray tackled her just as she got two fingers on the surface of the key fob…

  Wrong side.

  Her fingertips jabbed at plastic.

  The button was on the other side.

  Ray’s momentum sent her careening backwards, but she didn’t lose her footing. She stumbled, and he stumbled with her. He ripped her hand from her pocket, and the fob came flying out with it. It hit the warehouse floor on its plastic back and slid, collecting a ball of dust. It skittered to a halt with its button facing the roof.

  At no point in the wild scuffle had it been pressed.

  Alexis regained her balance and hunched over, shoulders rounded.

  Defeated, hopeless, sick to her stomach.

  She expected Ray to hit her in the face, or the gut, or anywhere that hurt enough to crumple her, and then he’d start heaving kicks into her head and throat and ribs.

  But that didn’t happen.

  When she finally righted herself, Ray was staring, his face red with rage.

  But not at her.

  At Ward.

  He said, ‘I told you to search her, Alan.’

  ‘I did,’ Ward spluttered.

  Panic.

  The uncontrollable rise of anxiety, from his stomach to his chest to his throat, choking him from the inside.

  Alexis saw it all. She knew something was coming. Something irreversible. Somehow it had all unfolded to her advantage. The initial accusation, putting him on the back foot, rattling him … and now this.

  The key fob was right there between Ray and Ward, like a museum artefact on display.

  It had come from her jeans pocket.

  A simple frisk would have found it.

  Ray knew.

  Ward knew.

  Ray said, ‘Why did you let her keep it?’

  ‘I didn’t—’

  Ray said, ‘You did.’

  She sensed the small army in the warehouse, bristling, looking for a reason to release their collective testosterone. Ward sensed it too, perhaps more so than Alexis.

  Ray said, ‘Maybe we need that walk after all.’

  ‘Keith…’

  ‘She seduced you, didn’t she?’ Ray hissed. ‘You couldn’t resist giving a pretty girl a lifeline.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So you didn’t search her, or you let her keep it?’

  Silence.

  Ray said, ‘It’s either a gross display of incompetence or a betrayal. Which is it?’

  ’N-neither. I frisked her. I must have missed it.’

  The last sentence hung there, exposing just how pathetic it sounded. Ray let it hang. The silence said, You can’t have missed it.

  Ward was like a middle-schooler defending himself before the inevitable detention, but middle-schoolers don’t have their life hanging in the balance.

  Under her breath Alexis said, ‘No.’

  Ward didn’t listen.

  He snapped.

  He ripped his service weapon from its holster.

  He shot Ray in the chest and ran for his life.

  39

  King slipped back into the role.

  He was desperate for information, but he couldn’t show it. It’d make Gates withdraw in a heartbeat.

  ‘What do you want?’ he spat.

  Silence.

  King said, ‘Did you call to apologise?’

  ‘No one speaks to me like that,’ Gates said.

  ‘I do,’ King said. ‘I speak like that to anyone who lays hands on me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, ’mano,’ Gates said. ‘Really, I am.’

  King thought, He is desperate.

  King said, ‘So — what do you want?’

  ‘You and your friend were holding back, we
ren’t you?’ Gates said. ‘When me and my boys roughed you up. I could tell.’

  King didn’t say a word.

  He didn’t know where the hell this was going.

  How much Gates knew, how much he didn’t.

  He wished he’d been able to interrogate Kerr on exactly what she’d fed to Gates, but she was tied up and Gates was talking now.

  Gates said, ‘Are you there?’

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘Answer my question.’

  ‘Why are you asking it?’

  ‘I know you were holding back,’ Gates said. ‘Who are you two, really? I’ve killed people with the damage I dealt to you and your friend.’

  King thought, I seriously doubt that.

  He said, ‘Yeah, we held back.’

  ‘How much of it were you faking?’

  A pause.

  Gates said, ‘Come on, man. I know people. I know you.’

  King said, ‘We weren’t scared, if that’s what you’re asking. We had to put that on.’

  Does he know?

  Gates said, ‘I thought as much. I respect what you did and why you did it. You’re smarter than the average impulsive criminal.’

  The average impulsive criminal, King thought. So — you?

  ‘Listen,’ Gates said. ‘This is coming out of left field, brother … I’m well aware. Now, I know you’re in the heroin business, but are you in it? Have you got experience with the enforcer side of it?’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m all out of options,’ Gates said. He was talking fast. King guessed cocaine was helping him get the words out. He was jacked. ‘All out of motherfuckin’ options, and I need you.’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘You didn’t fight back at my club ’cause you knew we’d shoot you,’ Gates said. ‘But you could have. You two are tougher than you were letting on.’

  ‘You could say that.’

  He doesn’t know who we are, King thought. He’s guessing. But he’s got some parts right.

  Gates said, ‘I’ve got a problem.’

  ‘If you’re coming to us for help…’

  ‘I know, I know. We didn’t get off on the right foot. But I didn’t trust you yesterday. I thought you were bullshitting about the Ray thing. And then…’

  ‘Ray?’

  ‘The guy the cops mentioned. I hadn’t thought it through. But now … well, shit’s hit the fan, my friend. I’m in a goddamn war with an ex-sheriff. Not an undersheriff, not an assistant sheriff. The fuckin’ sheriff. My boys have shot it out with his boys at a couple of locations. He’s gone to ground. Holed up in some industrial zone somewhere, I’m sure. But I’ve lost men. I’ve lost a lot of men. And the ones I’ve got left, they’re all tied up. Ray got a couple of them. I know he’s torturing them somewhere. Lads, look … I have no one else on call.’