Death Mark (Mason Dixon Thrillers Book 2)

by Nick Thacker

  “YOUR BROTHER?”

  THE QUESTION WAS genuine, which gave me hope. He’s not involved, I realized.

  “Yeah.”

  “You want to tell us about him?”

  “Nope.”

  “Fine. Continue. So no one knows your old man?”

  “Not really, no. Not enough to give me a feeling that they could satisfactorily determine whether or not your dead guy is actually him.”

  “Right,” good cop fat guy said. “So you don’t believe us.”

  “Guys,” I said, “cut the bullshit. You ever been in a room like this? A real room? Meant for interrogation of a suspect, or even a witness?”

  Bad cop sniffed.

  “It’s nothing like this. For one, the chairs are comfortable. They’re spending a lot of time in here, so why not get a decent chair? And the chairs are all the same, none of these unmatching kids-table-at-Thanksgiving pieces of crap you shoved me in.”

  Bad cop sniffed again.

  “And don’t even get me started on the walls. You realize that every room in every station in literally every city — all around the world — has finished walls? Just throw some spackle and paint up there, it costs about thirty bucks. And the table? Is there some sort of special ‘fake bad guy IKEA’ you know about?”

  The bad cop, at this, actually laughed. A quick chuckle, just a snort, really, but he stopped almost as quickly as it had begun.

  “So don’t try and convince me you’re anything but just some guys who found another guy, and you want to figure out why he’s dead. And who he is.”

  The pause, on both sides of the table, told me everything I needed to know.

  I’m right. And they need me for something. And my old man may not be dead.

  “Fine, Dixon. You’re right.”

  “I am?”

  Good cop nodded. “But that’s all you’re going to get for now. We still want to know why this guy’s dead and why your little token was found in his pocket.”

  I looked up at the ceiling, throwing my head all the way back and leaning back into the sharp metal of the chair. So that’s what this is about.

  “I figured,” I said. “I figured it was about the token.”

  “The mark, you mean?”

  “Right, yeah. Whatever you want to call —”

  “Whatever you want to call it. It’s yours, right?”

  I was shaking my head before he’d even finished the sentence. “No, it’s not, guys. Sorry to disappoint. It’s not mine at all.”

  “But you admit you know what it is?”

  “I don’t admit that at all.”

  “You admit you used something similar to this mark in your line of work?”

  “Bartending?” I asked. “Yeah, we had coins come into the bar all the time. Money. People spent it, and I took it.”

  “We’re talking about a mark, Mason.”

  I shook my head. “What makes you think I know a damn thing about this stuff?”

  I sensed we were close to the big reveal, the connection, the reason why I was in here in the first place, why the whole story had been concocted and sold to me, albeit in a highly unbelievable and lazy sort of way.

  I was right.

  “We believe this mark was meant to pull you in. To get you back in the game.”

  8

  “YOU THINK… YOU THINK THIS mark was meant for me?” I asked. My shocked expression apparently had an effect on the guy on the left.

  He shook his head. “No, not like that. It’s not about you — they wanted your father dead, and now he is. But they’re taunting you. Trying to lure you in.”

  I nodded, pretending like I understood. I had no idea what they were talking about. I looked around the tiny room once again, examining it. It wasn’t a police station’s interrogation room, and if it was, in fact, a room inside a large private investigation firm, my opinion was that they needed to hire a designer.

  “So what are they trying to lure me into?” I asked. “By killing my dad? Seems a bit… over the top.”

  “We agree, Mason,” bad cop said. “That’s why you’re here. We think it’s a bit much, and that your father’s death was an unfortunate side effect. Collateral damage.”

  “No,” I snapped, “it wouldn’t collateral damage unless it didn’t mean anything. A bomb blowing up and taking out a cafe and a woman and her child dying, that’s collateral damage. Hell, there was a movie about it.”

  Good cop nodded. “Right, yes, we know. Sorry — a poor choice of words.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “What we mean, I guess, is that your father was targeted, but only to get to you. He was killed because they wanted you back in the game.”

  “I’m just a bartender now, boys.”

  “Right. And I’m just a PI.”

  I looked at him, good and hard, stared him down like I knew only I could. This was the point in the investigation that the truth — the real truth — started tumbling out. On both sides, which meant I needed to start coming clean and at least admitting to these grunts that I was, in fact, exactly who they thought I was. Way I figured, it didn’t cost me anything, since they already assumed I wasn’t just a bartender. They’d proven that much, so the least I could do was come clean about it and see if they’d return the favor.

  “I’m a bartender,” I said again. “But I’m certainly not a detective.”

  “As your previous exploits have proven,” good cop said.

  Bad cop flashed him a glance, but it was already too late.

  “You’ve been spying on me, then?” I asked.

  “It’s our job. If it’s happening in the city, we’re supposed to know about it.”

  “Okay, that definitely sounds like something a PI would say.”

  “You joking?”

  “Yeah.” I looked at bad cop. If anyone’s going to come clean, it’s him. “Who you working for?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Some guy. Don’t worry about it yet.”

  “Fine, but you have to give me something.”

  “Fine.”

  Good cop started talking almost immediately. “The guy that offed your old man, he’s the one we’re after. Name’s Rockford Elizondo. We want him taken out, and we need it done quick. By Sunday.”

  “Rockford Elizondo?”

  “Yeah. Mexican father, but his mother is East-coast born-and-bred. Attended a fancy Ivy League school or something like that.”

  “Name checks out,” I said, shrugging. “So you thought you should ask me. Because I’m a bartender.”

  “Something like that, yeah,” the guy said.

  Bad cop shook his head. “No, we figured you’d want a chance at this guy that offed your father.”

  I frowned, pausing to feign interest in the question. “No,” I said. “I’m good. Thanks though.”

  I stood up to leave, and the two men at the table with me stood as well.

  I laughed. “That how this is going to play out? Two grunts beating me with a stick until I agree?”

  The man now standing directly in front of me, bad cop, glared. “We didn’t bring any sticks.”

  “Shame,” I said. “You’re going to need more than a couple sets of fists to fight me off. I may be old, but I ain’t dumb. You think I came in here thinking I’d be walking out without a fight?”

  Good cop jumped in. “We don’t need sticks or fists. Man, where you been? Business happens different these days. You should know that, barman.”

  He enunciated his last word by smacking a folder down on the table in front of him. The hollow steel rang, the slap reverberating only to the walls, the sharp noise dying quickly.

  Still, it was effective. I hadn’t even noticed he’d been holding a folder in his hand, and the abrupt sound of it hitting the table made me jump.

  “What’s this?” I asked. “Money? You trying to buy me?”

  Good cop shook his head.

  “Good, ‘cause my old man tried it for years. And I doubt you two would have enough
to afford me.”

  “Open it,” bad cop said.

  I did. The folder was a typical office issue, light beige and thin, barely cardstock. It had nothing on the front of it, not even a brand marking or logo. I reached for it, feeling the smooth outside of the cover before I flipped it open.

  Page one was a picture. Grainy, pixelated, and taken at night with what had to have been the worst camera ever designed. I could barely see what it was supposed to depict, but when I did, I pulled my hand back.

  My bar.

  It was, without a doubt, my little space downtown. Editso Beach, South Carolina. On the ‘strip,’ which was certainly a generous term.

  But it was mine.

  “What’s this all about?” I asked.

  “This your place?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, it’s going to be our place if you don’t help us out.”

  I made a smacking sound with my lips. “Right. Well, bad news, boys. The place ain’t for sale, and I ain’t rich — I’m still paying the place off.”

  Good cop nodded, then flipped over the first page picture and let me read the second page.

  I read what I could, but there was a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo. I had never been a fan of lawyers, mostly because I couldn’t stand the way they wrote. Just walk up to me and tell me what the hell you’re talking about, in plain English, you know?

  So I wasn’t entirely sure what this page was trying to tell me, but I got the gist from the top few lines that MASON DIXON, hereafter referred to as SELLER, was going to be selling his bar and all remaining debt on the property to some bank in Charleston.

  I looked up at my new friends. “This supposed to be real?”

  Bad cop shrugged. “If you want it to be.”

  “I don’t, I’m pretty sure.” I paused. “Yeah, now that I’ve thought about it, I really would prefer to keep my bar.”

  “That’s what we figured, too.” He reached down and grabbed the paper out of the open folder. “But the thing is, my boss really wants to get this little job done, and he tells us you’re the guy for it.”

  My turn to shrug.

  “So we had this little contract written up. It’s not really worth anything, as you know, since there are lawyers and signatures and stuff needed, but — and this might make a difference — our lawyer is pretty good friends with the guy who’d be signing this contract.”

  “Who, me?” I racked my brain, trying to figure out if I knew any lawyers. I had made it a point in my almost-49-years of life to distance myself from the legal profession, so I figured I was safe now.

  “No, Dixon,” good cop said. “The guy at your bank who’d be signing this.”

  “But you’d —”

  “Still need your signature? Yeah, we know. But we’re pretty good at getting what we want.”

  I let out a long sigh. “Right, okay. I got it. You’re like the mafia or something, and you’re going to break my legs if I don’t do what you want. And then, if I still don’t do what you want, you’re going to take my bar away from me.”

  Both men across the table from me nodded in unison.

  “Got it.”

  My mind raced. I tried to figure out if they’d forgotten something. If there was anything I had on them. Or if there was still a back door, some way to maneuver out of this mess I’d somehow gotten myself into.

  “So you’ll do it?”

  I frowned. “Do what? Kill Elizondo? The guy who murdered my old man?”

  Another nod.

  “That’s the thing, boys,” I said. “I don’t really… like my old man. I’m not saying I like him better dead, but I’m not sure I want to take on a project like this when it seems like you’re not exactly trustworthy individuals.”

  The bigger man, bad cop, sniffed. “Dixon, we already explained —”

  “You explained nothing. You just threatened me with taking away my bar. You know it’s not that hard to go find another bar, right?”

  “We know. But there is that whole part about breaking your legs, remember?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, sure. Right.”

  I took a deep breath. Whatever they were threatening me with was serious, judging by the looks on their faces and the folder in front of me. This wasn’t just some half-assed attempt to scare me — they’d thought this through, and prepared for it. They’d hired a guy to pose as a detective, and they’d even gone to the trouble to print out a whole folder of documents and bank-ish type statements.

  No one printed anything these days.

  These guys meant business.

  “Look,” I said. “I want my lawyer to look at these documents. That cool with you?”

  “No.”

  “Right. Figured. Okay, well, in that case, I’d like to look at them. Is that okay?”

  “No.”

  “Well then. Hmm. Seems like you’ve wasted a lot of time and dead trees printing it all out, then. You’ve also made quite an offer, gentlemen, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to —”

  “We’ll pay you.”

  I cocked my head sideways. I didn’t necessarily like this opportunity, but they had suddenly started speaking my language. “Yeah? What are we talking?”

  “We’ll cover your expenses, as long as they’re reasonable. And we get to decide if they’re reasonable.”

  Bad cop jumped in. “And then there’s a ‘finder’s fee.’”

  “For finding the guy?” I asked.

  “For finding the guy, and taking him out. Ten percent.”

  “Ten percent of what?”

  “Ten percent of what he stole from us,” good cop answered.

  I nodded. “That’s fair. What, uh, did he steal from you?”

  “Thirty-two million.”

  I choked, out loud. “Dollars?”

  “No, Dixon, pickles. Yes, dollars. Thirty-two million of them.”

  “That’s — that’s three-hundred twenty thousand. As a finder’s fee.”

  “Glad to see you can do math. You in?”

  I still wasn’t convinced this was legitimate, but I also knew that just about all of what I did outside of tending bar was not legitimate. I had never been one to abide by the law, but I also knew I needed to get confirmation on the mark. I needed to know the mark was worth being marked.

  Call me softhearted, but I don’t kill innocent people.

  Good cop reached down, then pushed the documents toward me. “Listen, Dixon,” he said. “These documents are real. You can look at them all you want, but we’re not leaving this room until we’ve got a verbal confirmation from you. You help us get this guy, we leave you — and your bar — alone.”

  That seemed reasonable, but I hated when people tried to tell me what to do. It was just… disrespectful.

  “Can you ask nicely?”

  “Come again?”

  “No. I don’t think you misheard me. There are two of you, after all. Put your heads together and figure it out.”

  “You — you want us to ask nicely.”

  “Is that so much to ask? My old man just died, so maybe it’s the least you can do?”

  The two grunts looked at each other — apparently my attitude was completely new to them — then they turned back to me. Bad cop nodded.

  “Yeah. Okay, fine. Will you please help us find Elizondo? By Sunday?”

  “And take him out?” good cop added.

  I waited, basking in the moment. A small victory. I’d learned a long time ago to really stop and appreciate those little victories — they were, when you think about it, everything.

  I crossed my arms.

  “Fine.”

  9

  “THEY WANT US TO WHAT?” Joey asked.

  Joey was my right-hand man, the manager of my bar, the head chef, and the man I trusted with, well, just about everything. He knew my secrets and he’d so far proven himself worthy of keeping them to himself.

  “They don’t want us to do anything,” I answered. “They want me to find some guy.”


  “Some guy who killed your old man!” Joey said.

  “Calm down. Yeah, something like that. Some guy — Rockford Elizondo — who murdered my old man.”

  “Did you see him?”

  I shook my head and poured myself a drink. No sense reaching for the cheaper stuff — I grabbed at a bottle of Jefferson’s Ocean, No. 11. A bourbon that tasted like it was made for king, at a peasant’s price.

  A peasant who made shit ton of money a year.

  Ocean was a bourbon that I’d coveted for a long time. It had taken me some time to get into it, what with its polished logo, simple and corporate, the name itself, and the kitschy novelty it promised on its little stretchy-band label: aged at sea, by letting the bourbon barrels sit on deck and slosh around in the sunlight and moonlight for a year. The bourbon would, therefore, take in more of the wood’s delicious flavors of vanilla and oak, at a much faster rate.

  Ostensibly.

  I’d put off tasting it for years, as I never was one to fall for the scams of marketers and advertisers. Or at least I didn’t want to think I’d fallen for them.

  But Joey had a bottle of it in hand when he’d returned from Charleston a few months ago, and had offered me a sample. The bottle, a standard 750mL, wasn’t cheap, so I immediately wasn’t impressed. But the first sniff, then the first taste, then the second sniff, began to change my mind. Deep, rich vanilla, just enough caramel, and the right amount of oak to make the drink smooth, but not cloying. Bite that matched its alcohol content, and overall the feeling that I was drinking something that deserved the reputation it had.

  Jefferson’s Ocean, in my opinion, was a fantastic purchase, and we began to stock it behind the bar. It tended to fit in well with the English pub theme we were currently running with, even though it wasn’t technically English anything, and most English hard liquor that was aged at sea was rum.

  So I splashed a few fingers into a rocks glass and dumped in a huge sphere of ice, then swirled it after giving it a respectful sniff. When I felt it was cooled enough, I brought it to my lips and thought about our next move.

  “No, but I’m going to find the guy,” I said.

  “Don’t,” Joey said, matching my movements with his own glass of bourbon — Bulleit, another popular mix-worthy bourbon we kept stocked.