by Mason Cross
I regretted the words instantly. She didn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“I never thought she would be in any danger.”
“And how much danger did you think the two of you were in?”
She hesitated. “Dom was worried about being frozen out of other deals. Worrying about his tires getting slashed. Nothing really dangerous. We thought it would be better to start fresh someplace else. I’ve gotten good at that.”
“I need to talk to him,” I said. “Somebody is after him, and they’re willing to use lethal force.” I looked at her meaningfully. “They don’t care who gets in their way. Maybe Freel hasn’t told you everything, but ...”
“Not every man keeps secrets.”
I didn’t have time to argue the point on that one.
“Will you take me to him?”
She closed her eyes and sighed, seeming to come to a decision. I wondered how much Freel had been keeping from her. “I’ll talk to him. How long are you in town?”
“As long as it takes.”
“There’s a restaurant called La Traviata over on South Street. It’s actually pretty good, despite the name. Be there at seven tonight and I’ll bring him along.”
I started to shake my head. “Much as I’d love to shoot the breeze with you both over a pizza, I need to talk to him now.”
“Well you’re not going to,” she said, her voice firmer. “We do this my way, okay? I need to speak to him first.”
We stared each other out for a minute. I realized it was her decision. I wasn’t going to point a gun at her head. Maybe she had already suspected there was more to Freel’s activities than he had told her. Perhaps it would be healthier if he fessed up to her before he did it in front of me. Carol would have time to digest the news in private; it would be less embarrassing. I guessed I owed her that much.
“Okay,” I said. I reached into my jacket and took out a card. I wrote my cell number on it and handed it to her. “I know you still have my email, but this’ll get me faster.”
She looked at the card in my outstretched hand for a long moment; as though accepting it would commit her to a course of action she wasn’t sure she wanted to take. Eventually, she took it. She read the name on the front of the card and raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. She slipped the card into her bag.
“Seven o’clock,” she said again. “La Traviata, South Street.” A statement, not a question.
“We’ll find it.”
“How could I forget? You’re good at finding things.”
32
The street was so quiet and so deserted that even in the middle of the afternoon it felt like it was six o’clock on a Sunday morning. Or the first day after the apocalypse, maybe. The rows of pastel-colored two-story houses stretched out behind generous front yards. After driving through the rest of the town, Sycamore Street seemed to be an anomaly. The houses Gage had seen elsewhere were simpler; one-story slump block adobe. These houses looked much newer, shinier, more generous in their proportions. The street had a vague sense of unreality that Gage found appropriate for a reason he could not quite explain. There was no sound but the occasional click of a lawn sprinkler from farther down the street. Nothing moved except the light breeze gently nudging the leaves of the orange trees.
The house at number 18 showed no signs of life, but Gage wanted to watch it for a little while before he made a move.
He turned the engine off and buzzed the driver’s window down. It was like opening the door of an oven. He thought about how well today had gone so far. Perhaps it was the universe balancing out after the unexpected trouble in Summerlin. He had been prepared to get rough with the owner of Norrie’s Diner; the place McKinney had mentioned. In the event, it had been much easier than that. The kid on duty had been talkative when he took Gage’s order. His nametag had identified him as “Cole.” Gage had mentioned to Cole that he was in town to see a friend he had sent letters to care of the diner. Cole said he remembered a letter arriving a week before. The recipient had a deal with the owner. Cole had delivered the letter himself, to an address over on Sycamore. It had been on his way home anyway, so no trouble.
This was one of the best things about small towns, Gage thought. No trouble. Everybody was so friendly and helpful. Not only had he not had to get physical, he had obtained the address he needed for the price of a cup of coffee.
Gage registered movement in the corner of his eye, and saw a well-fed orange tabby emerge lazily from beneath a silver SUV parked fifty yards up the street. The cat strolled unhurriedly across the road in front of him, before disappearing between two of the houses across the road from number 18.
His phone was lying on the passenger seat, plugged into the cigarette lighter to charge. He considered calling Walter to give him an update, and then remembered the brass key in his pocket and decided against it. Instead, he thumbed through recent calls for Courtney’s number. As the phone rang, he took out the key for the hundredth time, and turned it over between thumb and forefinger.
“Hello?”
“It’s me again. How you doing? Is Jake there?”
“Gage.” Courtney’s voice had the enthusiasm of someone receiving a call from a pushy double-glazing salesman. “He isn’t here right now. He’s at kindergarten.”
“Right,” Gage said. “Kindergarten. When did he start that?”
A car rounded the corner and Gage tuned out Courtney’s answer as he watched it pass him by and continue around the corner. Courtney said his name irritatedly when she realized he wasn’t listening to her reply.
“Sorry, I missed that.”
“What do you want?”
“Nothing that can’t wait,” Gage said. “It’s still okay to come on his birthday, right?”
There was a long silence. “I said so, didn’t I?”
“Sure. Okay, just tell him ... tell him I may have an answer to that question.”
Courtney replied with a noncommittal grunt and hung up.
Gage examined the brass key in his palm. The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. Maybe a lot more than that. He snapped his fingers over the key in a fist and slipped it back into his pocket. He buzzed the window of the Chrysler up. In the ten minutes he had been watching the house, he had seen only that one car, and no pedestrians. The only indication that this street was occupied at all had been the tabby. He was just about to get out of the car when his phone rang. The incoming call was from the number Walter had provided him with.
He answered, wondering whether they had some new information, or if they were just getting impatient. The one thing he hadn’t anticipated was what Walter said next.
“The job’s over. We’re standing you down.”
Gage’s eyes narrowed, wondering if he had heard correctly. “What?”
“Don’t worry, you can keep your fee, and we’ll reimburse you for any expenses you may have incurred. But we won’t need you to find Freel anymore.”
He had not been expecting this. Did that mean they had located Freel themselves? That seemed unlikely. And Gage was almost positive that this was the house in which Freel and his wife were staying. They couldn’t know how close he was, could they? Had somebody else given them a solid lead?
“You want me to stop looking for him?”
“That’s correct, yes.”
“Any particular reason?”
There was a slight hesitation, and Gage suspected Walter was resisting the urge to tell him “none of your goddamn business.” When he spoke again, he was more diplomatic than that.
“We don’t need him anymore, is all,” Walter said. “The situation has changed. I’m sorry to inconvenience you, but I hope you’ll agree the settlement is more than fair. Gage? Are you still there?”
“I’m just thinking.”
“What is there to think about? I’m letting you know the job is over, and we’re making sure you’re compensated. Thank you.”
“I’ll call you back,�
� Gage said, and hung up before Walter could respond.
What in the hell had that been about? Gage looked back at the house. He knew one thing for sure: there was no way he was coming all this way without finding out what made Dominic Freel such a wanted man. The key he had found on McKinney had only reinforced his hunch that there was more to this job than met the eye.
He took out the Ruger he had obtained in Phoenix and clicked the safety off, after making sure the chamber was empty. He replaced it in his holster, then pulled it clear a couple of times, making sure there were no obstructions. He got out of the car and put his sport coat on over the holster. He walked diagonally across the road to number 18 Sycamore Street. It was a two-story pastel-colored house, like pretty much all of the others. Pleasant enough, and it had probably cost about an eighth of the asking price of the house in Summerlin.
There was a high wooden gate on the left side leading to the backyard. On the right side was a single parking garage. The four front-facing windows of the house all had blinds that were half-shut, as though the occupants wanted to shield themselves from outside glances without drawing attention to themselves by having the blinds fully closed by day. The door was solid wood, painted dark red. There was a doorbell. Gage rang it, waited a minute, rang it again.
There was no sound, no movement from within.
Gage turned around and looked left and then right along the street. No cars, no pedestrians. Even the tabby had found something to occupy himself with.
He walked to the gate, pulled the handle and found it open. He navigated the passageway that led around the side of the house and came out in a simply appointed backyard. There was a small paved patio at the back door, where there were a couple of lawn chairs and a table, followed by a stretch of grass with a sprinkler snaking out into the middle.
Gage tried the handle on the back door just in case, and then took his picks out. A minute later, he was standing in a medium-sized kitchen. Like the backyard, it screamed rental. Everything was neat, clean, functional. There was no hint of a personal touch, nothing that gave any hint of the personalities of the occupants.
He opened the refrigerator and a few of the cupboards and found nothing of note. The trash can in the utility space was stuffed with pizza boxes and Chinese food containers. There was a door that squeaked softly as it opened out to the parking garage, which was empty. The tracks of road dirt on the concrete floor and the lingering scent of gasoline fumes told him that it had been in use recently.
He closed the door and began to check the rest of the house. He moved from room to room quickly, checking the closets and making sure nobody had hidden themselves away when they had heard him ring the doorbell.
He ascended to the upper floor. Two bedrooms and a bathroom. One of the bedrooms looked like it was in use, though as impersonally stocked as a hotel room. He checked the closet, under the bed, the drawers in the bedside table. He moved to the second bedroom, where there was a bed frame and mattress with no sheets, a desk and a laptop. The window beyond the desk faced out on the street outside. It was like looking at a still photograph. He mused that this was the second suburban dwelling he had broken into in the last forty-eight hours. His assignments did not usually lead him to such safe, mundane, middle-class environs.
He opened the laptop and the login screen appeared, requesting a password.
He reached into his pocket and brought out a small canvas case. He unzipped it, selected a tiny USB device and plugged it into the port on the side of the laptop. The login screen disappeared as the laptop rebooted. When it powered up again, it would skip the password request. While he waited for his gadget to do its work, he started to go through the desk drawers. He had finished and was moving to the chest of drawers when he heard the sound of an engine.
The street was so quiet that it was almost a minute before the gray Toyota appeared in his line of sight. He shrank back from the window and watched it slow and pull into the driveway. The car came to a stop with the engine running, and he heard a smooth hum as the automated door of the garage rolled up.
Quickly, he moved downstairs. He positioned himself on the blind side of the kitchen door and took his gun out as he listened to the car drive carefully into the port and the handbrake ratchet on. A second later, he heard the humming of the motor as the door rolled down again, followed by the clunk of the driver’s door opening and closing, and then the squeak of the door from the garage into the kitchen. There was a pause and the sound of someone fumbling with something in the kitchen, and the unmistakable noise of a car key being tossed on a work surface.
The kitchen door opened and Gage saw the back of a man wearing black pants and a light blue shirt. He had dirty blond hair. Gage could see both of his hands, and they were empty. He was headed for the stairs, had his left hand on the newel post ready to turn when Gage spoke.
“Turn around.”
The guy practically jumped out of his skin, whirling around and jerking his hand off the post as though it was red-hot.
His expression turned from surprise to anger when he saw Gage and the gun pointed at him. It was Freel, all right. The man in the picture.
“Who the hell are you?”
Gage took a step forward, keeping the gun leveled on Freel’s chest.
“Logan McKinney sends his regards.”
Freel’s brow creased as though Gage had just recited a nonsensical nursery rhyme. He raised his hands and his expression switched to worry. It was an act, entirely transparent. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You have the wrong house, buddy.”
“You can skip it,” Gage said.
“Skip what?”
“I know you’re Dominic Freel. I know you’re running from some people in Vegas.”
“Who’s Dominic Fr—?”
“I said skip it.” Gage had started out with no opinion of Freel—he was merely a target to be acquired. But now that he had been in the same room as the man for less than thirty seconds, he was already trying his patience. “Your name is Dominic Freel. You left your place in Summerlin, Nevada six weeks ago with your wife. You arrived here a couple of days later. Your former associates are keen to speak to you. Keen enough to pay me to bring you back.”
He cocked the gun and the sound sent a visible shiver through Freel, as though Gage had hit a button on a remote control.
“You know this, and I know this. If you want me to put a bullet in your kneecap so you can tell yourself you put up a fight then I’m happy to do that, but ...”
“Okay, okay. I’m Freel. What do you want?”
“I’m supposed to bring you back to Vegas. They didn’t specify that you had to be in one piece.”
“You don’t need to threaten me, all right? I’m cooperating.”
“That wasn’t a threat.”
Freel’s hands were still in the air. He moved them down an inch. “Can I ...”
“No.”
He hesitated and then said, “Can we talk about this?”
Excellent. This was more like it. Gage kept his face blank, like he had no more interest in Freel than a bug he was about to squash. “What is there to talk about? I have a job; the job is complete. Or it will be, when I take you back.”
“What did they tell you? About why I ran?”
Gage watched Freel’s eyes. They were the eyes of a man getting ready to bargain his way out of a tight spot. But the terms of the bargain would not be favorable.
“They told me you took something. Something they’d like back.”
Freel smiled, seemed to relax. His hands began to creep down again. Gage shook his head and jerked the barrel of his gun up. Freel’s smile vanished and his hands shot up again.
“How much are they paying you?”
“I really don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“Well it could be, if you know what I mean.”
Gage said nothing.
“How does fifty grand sound?”
Gage exhaled a bored sigh. “It so
unds a little far-fetched,” Gage said. “Unless you have a suitcase of cash stashed upstairs. Which I already know you don’t, by the way.”
“I’ll get it for you. I just need a couple of days.”
Freel tried a nervous smile again. The beads of sweat were shining on his brow. If he was a card player, he wasn’t a good one. Gage would have continued toying with him, if time had been on his side, but he wanted to get a move on. He reached into his pocket with his left hand and took out the key. The brass caught the light from the window, casting a golden reflection on the wall behind Freel. His smile evaporated.
“You know what this is,” Gage said slowly, “and you know where I got it.”
Freel opened his mouth, and then shut it again. The answers to all of his questions were obvious, unfortunately for him. Gage could see in his eyes he had already suspected that something had happened to his partner.
“He called me. When I tried to get ahold of him later, his phone kept ringing out.”
“Don’t hold your breath on it being answered. Where’s the other key? And where’s the safe?”
Freel hesitated.
“Don’t make me ask twice, Freel.”
“The key’s up there,” he said quickly, pointing toward the stairs.
Gage considered what to do next. Unless he wanted to leave Freel down here alone, they would both have to go upstairs. He gestured with the gun for Freel to take the lead. “Slowly.”
He followed him up the stairs and into the second bedroom. When Freel saw the laptop open and the USB device in one of the side ports, he shot a glance back at Gage, but thought better of saying anything.
“Where is it?”
“It’s right here,” Freel said, moving toward the chest of drawers.
“Stop.”
Freel stopped in his tracks, but seemed to be listing toward the chest, as though something within held a magnetic attraction. All of a sudden, Gage was certain that whatever it was, it wasn’t a key.
A loud, insistent outburst of noise pierced the silence in the small room. Gage’s eyes slipped from Freel’s face for a second, looking for the source, his brain taking a second to register it as a cell phone ringing.