Four

by Dustin Stevens

  He walked to the table and nodded his chin upward, no effort at a handshake or formal salutation.

  “Theo,” I said, nodding my head with a slight twist of the neck and extending a hand to the chair across from me.

  He slid into the chair with a groan and said, “Looks like you’ve been doing well.”

  “Same to you,” I lied.

  Mavetti made a face and leaned back in his seat. “I look like shit and we both know it, so why don’t we cut the crap. What am I doing here?”

  I reached into the inside pocket of my jacket and removed two cigars. Mavetti’s men stood and edged a little closer, fighting to see what I’d come out with.

  Theo raised his right hand to wave them off without turning to look.

  They retreated into their chairs as I clipped the ends of the cigars and offered one to Mavetti. He took it and smelled it once. “I want that one.”

  “What?”

  “I want the one in your hand, that way I know it isn’t laced with something.”

  “You’ve got two goons sitting in here and several more sitting outside. I’d be stupid to try something. Besides, you just saw me remove these from the wrappers.”

  Mavetti made a ‘so’ gesture with the cigar in his hand and I traded him the smokes. I would have done the same thing, but I let him see my annoyance just the same.

  I struck a match and lit mine, then slid the pack across and watched as he did the same.

  “Honduran?”

  I shook my head and said, “Best damn thing about Cuba right here.”

  Mavetti smirked, a crease forming in his fleshy cheeks. “Say what you want about Castro, but those bastards make a hell of a cigar.”

  A thin smile traced my lips. “That they do. Can I get you anything? Coffee, beer? Bucket of steamers?”

  Mavetti shook his head and leaned forward, the cigar in his hand just inches from his face. “What the hell are we doing here?”

  “I am done.”

  Mavetti smiled. “It’s done, huh? All four of them? Just like that?”

  I take another drag on the cigar. “I am done.”

  Mavetti pursed his lips together and nodded his head, my words sinking in to him. “So why are we here? If they’re all four dead, then that’s that. You’ve already been paid.”

  “I came to tell you I’m out.”

  Raising his eyebrows and turning his head, Mavetti asked, “Oh yeah? Just up and walking away from the business, huh?”

  “Yup, just like that. Out of respect, I came to tell you in person.”

  “Respect,” Mavetti muttered, followed by a chuckle. “We’ve never liked each other, don’t give me that respect bullshit.”

  “I didn’t say it was respect for you. It’s respect for my reputation.”

  I fell silent and continued working on the cigar as Mavetti leaned back, his elbow resting on the arm of his chair as a steady stream of smoke ascended into the air. He looked at me for several seconds, the wheels clearly turning in his head.

  “I don’t suppose I could interest you in a curtain call could I? One last hurrah for the road?”

  “I don’t know that there’s much of anything you could interest me in Teddy.”

  Mavetti pondered the response for a moment and said, “I didn’t think so. But how about a million dollars? Could that grab your attention?”

  My heart rate spiked a tiny bit, though I kept my face impassive before him. I took another powerful drag on the cigar and asked, “Who’s the hit?”

  “Just like that, huh?” Mavetti asked, a smile spreading across his face. “See, I knew it. You love this shit too much to ever walk away from it.”

  “Don’t ever think you know a damn thing about me. And like I said, this is it for me. Once I go home, I am done.”

  “Alright,” Mavetti said and motioned over his shoulder towards his goons at the table. The man with the briefcase rose and walked over, handed the case off to Mavetti and quickly retreated. He walked the whole way back facing us, his gaze never wavering.

  Typical meathead crap.

  Mavetti sat the briefcase on the table and unclasped it, revealing a laptop computer inside and nothing more. A Sprint card with a small antenna emerged from the right side, the lights on it blinking active.

  Mavetti opened the screen up to reveal a wire transfer ready to be completed. He turned the laptop to me and said, “As you can see, this is a wire transfer for one million dollars. All you have to do is enter your account number and it will be yours within seconds.”

  I glanced down at the screen and then back to Mavetti. “Who’s the hit?”

  Smiling with one side of his mouth Mavetti replied, “Your account number and the money is yours.”

  Leaning forward, I rested my upper body on my elbows, staring at the screen before me.

  “So you know, that thing will time out in about a minute,” Mavetti said. “At that point I’ll close my case, take my cigar, and you’ll never hear from us again.”

  I slid my gaze from the screen to the fat excuse of a man seated across from me. For a moment I could feel the rocks beneath my thighs and thought about how nice it would be to smash Mavetti and his damn computer.

  Instead, I did the next best thing.

  I took his money.

  Using my index and middle finger I entered the number to my Swiss account and pressed enter. The counter before me dropped to zero as the money was wired and the program disintegrated before my eyes.

  In its place was a picture.

  A single photo with a name beneath it.

  I stared at it for several seconds, then pushed myself back from the table and resumed my place resting against the back of my chair, cigar still in hand.

  “So I assume there won’t be any problem?” Mavetti asked, pulling the case back to himself and clasping it shut.

  “Why would there be?”

  Mavetti nodded. “Good. Have a safe trip you son of a bitch, wherever you’re going next.”

  “Hell, same as you,” I replied as he and his crew left the room.

  As soon as they were gone I called a waitress over and ordered some peel-n-eat shrimp and lemonade. When the food arrived I took my time and ate slow, watching the clock pass as much to make sure Mavetti was gone as to plan my next move.

  This one could be interesting.

  Might even be fun.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Rule number three – I always work alone.

  Unlike the first rule, this wasn’t something I learned the hard way. I didn’t stand by and watch somebody I cared about go down tragically or have to call somebody’s family to tell them they weren’t coming home.

  Fact is, I got in the habit of working alone for just those reasons. I know what I do is a very dangerous game and I knew well enough not to drag somebody else into it. The only people I ever trusted enough to call on were the same ones I would never put in harm’s way.

  Not to mention I didn’t want them knowing what it was I was really doing on all these ‘business’ trips.

  Over time, I developed an affinity for working alone. There was another cliché about people working better alone, but there was a certain truth to it.

  I’d honed my skills and my patterns of doing things based on my own capabilities. Every escape clause I’d had and every plan I’d formulated relied on the very precise movements of one person and one person only.

  Me.

  Why mention this? Because this was an instance where it would be easier for a lesser hitter, a person that didn’t adhere by such a strict set of rules, to get sloppy. To go outside themself and seek assistance.

  This one was going to be tougher and I was going to have to rely on some unknowing outside assistance, but it had to be done.

  A target like this one required some pretty extensive measures. Special care would be taken, meaning I had to go to extreme lengths to make my presence known as little as possible.

  My initial thought when Mavetti left was to
go with electrocution.

  It was quick, it was authentic, it was easy as hell to pull off.

  Hide in their room, wait for them to take a shower, drop a curling iron in the bath tub. Couple of hundred Amps later the person was lying in the tub, I was walking away.

  Only signs left on the body were burns on the foot and the neck where the current passed.

  The running water even went the extra mile of eliminating any trace evidence. By the time anybody found the body it was so bloated and washed clean, the fried curling iron was about the only definitive way of knowing what happened.

  Problem with electrocution though was it was an inexact science. Depending on the wiring of the building, a surge could black out the entire place.

  Worse than that, it was impossible to control all the variables.

  If a person had a bath tub full of water, that current could flare up, leaving me open to some serious electrical burns.

  If the person was taking a shower in a stand-up stall, everything would be wet, but there wasn’t likely to be any standing water. Water would always conduct electricity, but with such little water available you ran the risk of shocking the hell out of someone, but not killing them.

  Risks I couldn’t afford to take.

  I could try a hanging again, but I might be pushing my luck there. If investigators happened to notice two within a day of each other, they might start looking for connections.

  Connections that would never lead them to me, but depending on how close they were, might lead them to Mavetti. He and I already hated each other, no need to give him a reason to shove me at some investigation to get his own ass out of a sling.

  That only left me with one option.

  The pills I didn’t use on Gerkin.

  The problem with the pills was how to use them and make it look legit. This guy wouldn’t be begging for the end the way Gerkin was.

  Even worse, I definitely couldn’t let anybody know that I’d been near this one. This target would be paranoid, watching for any sign of my passing.

  Using my cell phone with the call scrambler I called downtown to the Ritz and reserved a room under a pseudonym. I gave her a credit card number that matched the fake identity and waited for my confirmation code before thanking her and hanging up.

  I dressed in a pair of black slacks and a white button down with a silver and black design tie. I parted my hair crisply using some more of the gel and finished the look with polished black wingtips and a pair of silver cufflinks.

  I tossed a couple random articles of clothing in an overnight bag and threw the strap over my shoulder, heading down to the rental in the lot. Darkness had descended on the city and the air was cool, the traffic light as I wound down Storrow Drive and exited on to Beacon Street.

  The streets of downtown were still alive with window shoppers and panhandlers as I passed by the Bull & Finch and Emerson College. From my car I could see people walking their dogs through the Public Gardens and folks lining up to buy tickets at the cinema on the corner.

  I turned off of Commonwealth and into the Ritz, handing the car off to a valet. I took my bag from the backseat and gave him a fifty, making my way to the front desk.

  A middle-aged woman with glossy black hair assisted me with my reservation, flirting mildly and earning herself a fifty as well. A bellhop appeared to take my bag to my room, but instead of following him up I retired to the lounge and order a shrimp cocktail and a ginger ale.

  Not quite the drink I had in mind, but I didn’t want to take a chance with anything harder.

  Not just yet anyway.

  The Sox were on the plasma above the bar and I passed the time by making idle conversation with a man named Terry Schiff from upstate New York. Several innings went by as we sat and talked, grumbling about the Sox middle relievers and discussing the strictures of work.

  I waited until after nine o’clock for the shift change, then peered across the lobby as the dark haired lady was replaced by a woman at least ten years older with silver flecking her short brown mane.

  With one last pull I finished my ginger-ale and excused myself from Schiff, clearing both our tabs and leaving a twenty in the tip jar for the barkeep. I shook Schiff’s hand and told him it was good meeting him, that he should look me up the next night to watch the game again, and headed out into the lobby.

  Ducking down behind a thick pillar and two large feicus trees I made sure I was out of view from the front desk, then picked up one of the phones and dialed the front desk.

  It was answered on the second ring.

  “Hi, I was wondering if you could tell me the room number for a Dr. Aaron Birchwood, please?”

  A second passed before the woman replied, “I am sorry sir, we can’t give out that information to non-guests here at the Ritz.”

  “Oh, of course ma’am, and I actually am staying here at the Ritz. I am here in the lobby and Aaron was supposed to have met me in the bar an hour ago, I just want to call up and make sure everything’s alright.”

  “And your name sir?”

  “Terry Schiff.”

  Another moment passed. “Dr. Birchwood is located in room 302, Mr. Schiff.”

  “Why thank you! Is there any way I can get a bottle of champagne sent up to his room? I’d like it to include a note that says, ‘If you’re going to be too good to have a drink with me, at least have a drink on me,’” I said, chuckling.

  “Very well sir, I’ll have that sent right up. Would you like to charge that to your room?”

  “Oh, yes please.”

  I had just bought the guy’s dinner. We were even.

  “Very well Mr. Schiff, that is on its way.”

  “Thank you Miss, you have a good evening!” I said and hung up the phone. I swung out around the far side of the lobby and entered into the stairwell before racing to the third floor.

  I arrived to find an empty corridor, rooms lining either side. Walking slow, I followed the hall as numbers descend, forcing my breathing to remain even.

  I was almost ten feet from the elevators before they chimed and the door swung open. A young man in a red jacket backed out of it with a silver cart, a bucket of ice and a bottle of champagne atop it.

  “Excuse me sir,” I called after him, jogging a few steps to catch up. “Is that the champagne I ordered for Dr. Birchwood?”

  The young man pulled up and turned to me, giving me a once over before asking, “And you are?”

  “Terry Schiff.”

  “Yes sir, it is.”

  “Would you mind terribly if I took that down to him? Kind of a running joke we have going,” I said with a smile.

  The kid started to protest, but a well-placed fifty stopped him before the words reached his mouth. “Please?”

  “Just leave the cart in the room, we’ll come get it tomorrow.”

  He was halfway back to the elevators before I even realized the money was out of my hand.

  “Thank you so much,” I replied, gripping the cart and waiting for the elevator bell behind me before moving on.

  As the numbers on the rooms grew smaller, I reached down and felt the vial of pills in my pants pocket.

  I pulled the cart up in front of room 302, knocked three times and stood back from the door.

  It was time.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “You think we should call Ames? Let him know we’re making some headway here?” Meeks asked, angling the car through the afternoon traffic.

  “We don’t know that we’re making headway here,” Beckett responded, watching the glossy white brick of the Callahan Tunnel whiz by. “It’s been two days and we haven’t heard a word from him. I’m guessing he knows we know, so he’s staying away.”

  “I thought this was personal?”

  “It was when he thought his ass was going to get pinched. Like I said, it’s been two days. Guy probably figures if we haven’t called yet, we ain’t gonna.”

  Meeks bobbed his head in agreement as the Crown Vic left the Callah
an and emerged into daylight. Traffic was already beginning to thicken up on the freeway, another couple of hours and it would be gridlock in both directions.

  They exited off of 93 onto Purchase, then wound their way down Congress and onto Gillette Way. The day shift was just finishing up as a steady torrent of cars flowed out of the place. Going in the opposite direction, the road was clear as they bypassed the employee lot and took a spot on visitor’s row.

  They hopped from the car and walked to the front door with Beckett leading the way. He stepped through the front door, walked up to the reception desk and said, “Can you tell me where Bill Richards’s office is please?”

  A young woman with streaked blonde hair and neon white teeth smiled and asked, “Do you have an appointment with Mr. Richards?”

  “No,” Beckett responded in a flat monotone.

  “Is he expecting you?” she asked, her brow furrowing inward just a bit.

  “Nope.”

  “Then I am sorry sir, but Mr. Richards is a very busy man. He doesn’t see people like this, though there is an open shareholders meeting next month if you would like to come and be heard then.”

  Beckett pulled the badge from his jacket and wagged it at her. “Miss, I’m not here about shares. I am investigating a series of murders in the Boston area and while Mr. Richards isn’t a suspect, we believe he has information that could help us.”

  The badge had the same effect on her it had on the receptionist outside Webster & Webster.

  “One moment please,” she said and picked up the phone. She held it close to her face and turned her back to them, whispering so they couldn’t hear a word.

  While she talked, Beckett stepped back for a moment and looked around. The welcome desk was a few feet in front of a glass railing that ran waist high. Beyond it he could see two floors down into an atrium that featured enormous palm trees and fountains. The atrium rose through the middle of the building six or seven floors high, each lined with offices.

  “I bet those folks we passed on the way in here don’t work in this building,” Meeks whispered.

  Beckett smirked. “I bet most of those folks have never even been in this building.”