Four

by Dustin Stevens

  The woman was closest to me, lying on her side, facing the door. She was huddled beneath a heavy down comforter, her body in the fetal position. Three feet away I stopped and pulled the scrub shirt from my front pouch, opening it to the gasoline spot.

  In one swift movement I pressed it down over her face while holding the back of her head stationary with my other hand.

  Her eyes snapped open for just a second before rolling back, her body slack. She’d be woozy in the morning and have the headache from hell, but she would live.

  Who I presumed to be Daniel Reed was lying face down on the other side of the bed, not yet moving an inch. I released the woman and stepped away, dropping the shirt to the floor.

  I pulled the tire iron from my shirt sleeve and circled around the bed, pressing the hex nut to the back of Reed’s skull. Jumping off both feet, I landed in the center of his back, planting my knees on either side of him, pinning his body beneath the blankets.

  “You move one fucking inch and I’ll waste you and your pretty little wife,” I hissed into his ear.

  He tried moving from side to side as I squeezed on him with my legs. “Maybe you didn’t understand me. Lay the fuck still or the bitch gets it.”

  “Oh Jesus. Jenny, Jenny!”

  Using the tire iron I whacked him across the back of the head, just hard enough to draw blood. “I said lay still and shut up. You have something I want.”

  “Oh, Jesus man. Don’t do anything stupid here, please. I don’t have anything of yours.”

  “I didn’t say you had anything of mine, I said you have something I want.”

  “Whatever you want, take it. Take it! Please, just don’t hurt my girls.”

  Man referred to his wife and daughter as his girls.

  How touching.

  “I don’t want your wife or your daughter. If I did, rest assured I’d have already had them.”

  “Oh Jesus,” Reed mutters. “Jenny! Jenny!”

  “Relax Danny boy, Jenny’s fine. She’s a little incapacitated right now, but nothing she can’t sleep off. If I don’t start getting the cooperation I’m looking for here I won’t be able to say the same about you.”

  “Mister, if you hurt her I swear to God I’ll...”

  I whacked Reed again across the back of the head, again drawing blood. “You’ll what? You can’t even protect yourself right now. Look at you, bleeding all over your nice fancy bed.

  “Now just shut the fuck up, listen to me for a second, answer my questions and I’ll be on my way. Alright?”

  Beneath me Reed bobbed his head a time or two. “Yes, anything. What can I do for you? What is it I have that you want?”

  I leaned down so my face was only a few inches from his ears. “Mavetti.”

  For a second Reed stopped moving, his face twisted in confusion. “What? Mavetti?”

  “You heard me.”

  “What makes you think I have Mavetti?”

  I tapped him on the back of the head with the iron again, just to let him know I wasn’t playing.

  “Don’t be smart with me or it’ll be the last thing you do. I broke into your house, gassed your wife and pinned you down without you so much as moving a muscle. Don’t think I can’t do it again anytime I want.”

  Reed shook his head beneath me in earnest. “No seriously, what makes you think I have Mavetti? Does this look like a place a guy like him would live?”

  “The black Lincoln was registered in your name. The same black Lincoln Teddy sent after me tonight. Care to explain?”

  “I’m the name and address on all of his cars. I’m his lawyer. Well, the one in charge of property for his outfit anyway.”

  “What? How many lawyers does he have?”

  “I don’t know. He has one for every facet of his operations, never puts us all in the same room together.”

  Again I tapped the iron into the back of his head. “Where’s his base of operations?”

  “I have no idea.”

  I raised the iron again, ready to blast him a fatal blow. “Please! Don’t! I swear I don’t know! Mavetti never lets us come to him.”

  He began to cry as I leaned forward and asked, “So where do you conduct business?”

  “The very first time we met was at his house, every time since has been in my office. Every time.”

  “Every time but the first,” I repeated. “So where’s his house? I can start there.”

  He cried even harder, ragged sobs wrenching his body forward. “Oh Jesus, I can’t. Jesus, I can’t. He’d kill me.”

  Using the iron, I poked him again. “What do you think I’m going to do if you don’t tell me? Or if you do tell me and it’s the wrong address?”

  “He knows where my wife works, where my kid goes to school. Please.”

  “You tell me where he lives and trust me, you won’t have to worry about him coming after you.”

  The man sniffled again, weighing his options. I could tell he didn’t like either one, though at the moment I was the one with a weapon pressed to his skull.

  “He lives down south in Marshfield, off of Route 3. Get off the highway, hang a right at the light and follow it on past the school. Make another left and it’s a couple of miles down.”

  I paused for a moment as his words resonated.

  Son of a bitch.

  Ten years ago I stood in his daughter’s bedroom with a silenced .9mm and took a picture of myself. In all the time since the arrogant prick hadn’t bothered to move.

  He knew all that time that I knew where he was and didn’t feel the need to relocate.

  This hit was going to cost him a lot more than a million dollars.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Anyone that had ever driven through the night or worked the graveyard shift knew the hours between midnight and dawn, when the world settled under a cloak of darkness and nothing moved. There are no other sounds, no other headlights on the road.

  I was not sure what time it was, but it was definitely one of those hours.

  That was a good thing.

  I followed Reed’s directions through the night, though I didn’t need them. Already my mind went back ten years before, guiding me as I cut a path for Mavetti’s.

  I abandoned the route just off the highway, opting for the back roads I used before. The fact that he hadn’t changed his location burned within me, driving me on.

  If I was in his position and knew somebody had been in my home and could do it again, there was no way in hell I’d still be there.

  Part of me debated if the home was just a decoy to lure me out, but common sense was against it. The last incident was ten years ago, there was no way he’d hang on all that time in hopes our paths would cross again.

  Two miles out I pulled the rental off the road, swinging down an old farm lane and parking behind some thick brush. I popped the trunk and circled around back, pulling the black bag to the center of the space.

  Two Uzi’s, two silenced .45’s, and a sawed off shotgun. A hell of a lot of firepower to be going after one person.

  The only sign of respect the bastard had ever shown me.

  I pulled one of the Uzi’s and the shotgun from the bag and set them to the side. Too many guns in the bag and they’d rattle as I walked, which is why I could only take one Uzi.

  The shotgun was a serious weapon and left a trail of carnage in its wake, but it only fired twice before having to be reloaded.

  I wouldn’t have that kind of time or patience.

  I zipped the bag closed, tossed the shoulder strap across my chest and shut the trunk. Taking a.45 in either hand I left the car where it was, deciding against bringing along the tire iron.

  I didn’t intend to leave any survivors behind.

  I looked back just once to make sure the car was hidden from view before taking off at a brisk jog. I pulled the shoulder strap tight to keep the bag from flopping against my back, padding quietly through the night.

  I stayed close to the side in case I needed to jump int
o the woods and every so often I paused to listen for any sound. Sweat began to bead and run down my face as I went, bag of weapons on my back and a gun in each hand.

  Times like these are why I trained so hard to stay in shape, so I could push forward without having to worry about conserving energy.

  The only thing I needed to worry about conserving was darkness.

  Turning off the paved road I followed an old dirt trail that ran through the woods, the same one I used the last time I was here. It sat nearly a quarter mile from Mavetti’s place, an old logging road that hadn’t been used in years.

  I slowed to a walk and picked my way through the tall grasses, avoiding the stickers and brambles that had grown up tall along the way. The air hung heavy under the canopy of the trees and streaked my body.

  A hundred yards down the trail I turned and made my own path, cutting through several large old pines. The lane itself wrapped off to the west and continued into the deepest part of the forest, a route that was of no use to me.

  Ahead I could see the lights of Mavetti’s place, nothing between here and there to block them.

  The last time the area was heavily wooded, making it easy for me to steal from tree to tree. I was within ten yards of the house before ever having to leave concealment.

  It seemed Teddy had made a few changes in the years since.

  Not a tree stood between where I was and the house itself. A few stumps dotted the landscape, but for the most part it looked like nothing but rolling meadow.

  In addition, a brick wall encircled the house, rising dark and ominous from the ground.

  It seemed Teddy may have been a little worried this day was coming after all.

  Setting the guns on the ground, I took up two handfuls of mud from the moist earth and smeared them into the blue scrub pants. The mud clung to the thin fabric, turning them almost as black as my shirt.

  Perfect.

  I took the guns up in either hand, laid down flat on the ground and drew the hood up over my head. One knee and elbow at a time I began to Army crawl forward, a gun in each hand and the bag strapped to my back.

  The first fifty yards passed easily, the fifty after that a little tougher.

  Each passing step brought me closer to the wall, the thin scrubs doing little to protect my legs from the rocky ground. I could feel deep scratches forming on my knees, but I continued moving forward.

  It took me several minutes to cover the distance from the woods to the wall, sweat pouring down my face, blood oozing from my knees. I reached the enclosure and slung the bag from my back, pressing flat against the cool brick and taking deep breaths.

  I listened hard for any sound, but heard nothing.

  After a full minute, I stood and turned to face the wall. One at a time I kicked off my shoes, tied the laces together and slung them over my shoulder. I put the guns in the front pouch of my sweatshirt and thrust my fingers between two bricks a few feet above my head.

  Running my feet up the side of the wall, I drew my shoulders up above my fingers.

  One hand at a time I worked my way up, swinging my ass out away from the wall to act as a counterweight to allow my feet to crawl higher. It was slow going and I could feel blood dripping from my fingertips and toes, but upward I kept moving.

  At the top, I grabbed hold of the thick gray capstone with my left hand and slid out a .45 with my right. Hooking a foot up atop the wall, I raised my head just high enough to peer in either direction.

  A camera on a swivel rested in even intervals atop the wall, one about fifty feet away to either side of me. Their scans were staggered so that one swung in right after the other, no more than a second passing between sweeps.

  I dropped down behind the edge of the wall and waited a moment before pulling myself up. The camera to my right looked straight down the wall as I raised the silenced .45 and sent a bullet straight through it.

  Using my legs, I shifted myself atop the wall, straddling it with my upper body pressed flat. I waited just a second for the camera to my left to look my way before taking it out as well.

  Raising my upper body up to a seated position, I pushed the gun back into my pouch and started down the opposite side. Several feet of hedges line the walls and the house, but like the outside there are no trees anywhere.

  Grabbing hold of the top of the wall with both hands, I leaned as far back as possible and drew my feet up tight beneath me. Bouncing twice to get some spring going, I burst back from the wall, twisting mid-air and rolling forward on contact to break my fall.

  Without listening for anything, I drew the .45s and retreated into the hedge, pulling a few branches in front of me for cover while I tugged on my shoes and waited.

  It was only a matter of time before somebody noticed the busted cameras and came looking for me.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Two minutes.

  That was all the longer it took for me to know Teddy wasn’t home.

  Crouched in the bushes, I watched as it took almost seven minutes for two men to come out and inspect my handiwork. If Teddy were home it would have been more like ten seconds, if he didn’t already have people outside surrounding the place.

  Two minutes at the very most.

  Some would have cashed in their chips right then, been pissed that the target wasn’t home, went about this from a different angle.

  Not me.

  There was still an enormous amount of information that could be found in the house.

  Namely, where he was holed up.

  Everybody wrote things down. Somewhere in there was bound to be what I was looking for.

  The two men marched from the house and out across the lawn, guns swinging by their side. They walked right towards me, stopping about twenty yards out to discuss what was going down.

  I waited to make sure no one else was following them before sliding the ends of the .45’s through the branches. Sizing up the distance I paused a moment, then pulled the triggers in unison.

  Both men fell straight back, a pair of muffled shots catching them each in the chest. I pulled the barrels back into the shrubs and waited a few more minutes before coming out of my hiding spot and crossing over to the bodies.

  I hated using guns, always had.

  Lots of blood, lots of mess.

  Worse than that though, there was no way of covering your tracks. Guns left behind bullets, residue, odor.

  They left behind a trail.

  Crimson circles covered each of their chests, obvious even in the darkness against their white shirts. I put another bullet into the head of each of them to be sure, then grabbed one of them by the ankles and dragged him to the edge of the shrubs. Once he was in position, I returned and did the same with the other one.

  Both were dressed in plain black suits and I’d already destroyed the cameras for this corner of the property.

  They wouldn’t be spotted.

  I checked the men for wallets or cell phones but the search turned up empty. Crouched by the bodies, I surveyed the surrounding area, figuring that the best course of action for me was to walk straight up to the house.

  There weren’t any trees blocking my approach and if I moved in either direction I’d have additional cameras to deal with.

  As far as anyone inside knew, two men came out because a pair of cameras went out. If they happened to look out as I approached, odds were they would mistake me for one of them.

  Besides, I had two .45’s and an Uzi. Walking up was a risk I could afford to take.

  Pulling the hood back off my head I rose and strode straight for the house. I turned the guns so the barrels ran along the inside of my forearms, the handles still resting in my palms should anyone appear.

  It took me less than a minute to cover the fifty yards, nothing around me making so much as a sound. The fact that Mavetti left the place so little coverage told me he didn’t expect me to survive earlier, otherwise he’d know this was a direct insult.

  Taking me lightly could be the only t
hing that pissed me off more than trying to take me out in the first place.

  Reaching the house, I pressed my back to the wall and peered inside the closest window. From where I stood I had a clear view of the dining room, telling me he hadn’t changed the layout any in the last decade.

  So much for not pissing me off even more.

  I watched the dining room for several seconds to make sure nobody was around, then dropped to the ground and stared out over the grounds. I slowed my breathing and counted to one hundred, waiting for an attack that never appeared.

  Unslinging the bag, I deposited the .45’s inside and returned it to my shoulder. The idea of being left weaponless for a few minutes wasn’t one I was crazy about, but from the looks of things it wouldn’t be a problem.

  A two story wraparound porch encased the house, supported by thick columns along the entire way. Staying below the sight line of the window, I crawled over to the nearest column. Wrapping my hands around it and placing my feet flat against it, I raised my body two feet at a time, scaling it like a Native Hawaiian in a palm tree.

  I could tell I was out of practice because by the time I reached the second story, my shoulders and thighs burned like hell. Ignoring the sting, I climbed over the rail of the second floor balcony and lowered myself to the floor, body pressed against it.

  Once more I pulled the bag from my back, tugging the .45s back out. I waited a full minute for any sign of opposition before slinging the bag back on and stepping up to the closest window, exposing no more than a fraction of my face to the clear glass.

  The position gave me a clear view of the hallway, two guards present on either end. Judging by their positions and my previous escapades, I could tell there was one outside the master bedroom and another outside their daughter’s bedroom.

  I waited for any sign of others, but nobody appeared.

  Every part of my experience told me to take it slow, to creep over to either end of the balcony and make sure nobody else was around, but I opted against it. Whether it was anger or anticipation I wasn’t sure, but I went straight to the second window to my right and took a peek inside.

  Just as she had ten years prior, Cynthia Mavetti laid sleeping on her side, her knees curled up in front of her. No more than six the last time I was here, she was now a teenager, her silhouette much longer than I remembered.