by Nick Thacker
“But you don’t.”
“But I don’t,” I answered.
“You were on to something, though,” Joey said. “What was that?”
“Well, I just remember them saying he was a shipper, from Charleston. I didn’t think much of it, but — maybe this is a stretch — maybe he’s got a big shipment coming in on Sunday.”
“Which is why they’d want this all wrapped up by then.”
“Right,” I said.
“I don’t think it’s a long shot at all. You said it yourself they thought you’d know exactly who this guy is, or at least they implied it. If they were really that dead-set on getting him killed, they could have at least made sure you knew who he was.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry, I guess I didn’t think to ask.”
“We can figure it out, though,” Joey said. “If they were that sure, it shouldn’t be hard to find him.” He pulled out his phone again. “Actually, hang on a sec.”
I watched him flip through the screen on his smartphone, then press on something. He held the phone up to his ear.
“Yeah, hey — it’s Joey again,” I heard him say.
I frowned.
“Yeah, no problem. Hey, can you — would you mind doing me a favor?”
My eyes widened. “Joey,” I said. “Don’t.” I wasn’t sure who he was talking to, or what he was about to disclose, but I couldn’t risk getting anyone else involved.
Joey laughed, then continued, holding up an index finger at me. “Yeah, yeah, of course. We’ll have to grab a drink sometime when I’m up there. Anyway, listen. I’m wondering if you can give me any information about your suppliers?”
Joey made a face, then his expression softened. “Oh! No, man, no way. You’re still our guy. Has nothing to do with that, and you shouldn’t worry about it. I know we can’t buy direct anyway. We — I just want to know someone’s name, if possible. Or, actually, if you know a name.”
I watched Joey’s face, silently wishing he’d both hang up the phone and also hoping he’d put it on speakerphone so I could hear.
“Rockford Elizondo. That ring a bell?”
Joey listened for a minute. “That’s the one. You sure?” he nodded. “Dude, thank you. That’s great. Yeah, why don’t you come down? You said you’re driving anyway?”
Another nod, then Joey thanked him again and hung up.
“What was that?” I asked.
“That was our supplier. Charleston.”
“Frey?”
Joey nodded. “I was just talking to him earlier like I said, and he knows a bunch of the guys in the area who ship in weekly and monthly. Figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”
I could tell Joey was getting excited about whatever it was he’d just found out, so I didn’t interrupt him.
“He’s stopping by to grab a drink, since he was already on the highway.”
I waited, but Joey had turned away, wiping down his side of the bar and preparing to move toward the tables on that side of the room.
I raised an eyebrow. “You going to tell me, or do I have to guess?”
He grinned. “He knows. He’s in.”
“Wait, what? What do you mean, he’s in?”
Joey sighed. “I didn’t tell him anything — obviously. You heard the call. He just —”
“Joey,” I said, suddenly feeling myself grow very serious. “Joey, this isn’t something we’re bringing anyone in on.”
“No, I know that, boss,” he said. “I just… I may have told him before about the boat, and how we…”
I frowned.
“He and I are sort of friends. Whenever I’m up in Charleston we try to grab a beer. I’ve told him about your boat, and how we’re always out on it and stuff. He’s a good guy, asks a lot of questions and stuff. I like that.”
“But you didn’t say anything about the boat this time, Joey,” I said. “Why in the hell would he assume that we’re heading out on it again?”
“Well, it’s… I might have told him once or twice that we’ve been unavailable when he’s wanted to meet up, and he’s — I guess — jumped to conclusions.”
“He’s jumped to conclusions?” I was starting to get pissed, and Joey’s calm, careless demeanor wasn’t helping. “Joey, what we do — what happens outside of this bar — is classified.”
“I know that, and I’ve told him nothing. But what was I supposed to say when he wanted to meet up, or drop off a delivery, and neither of us was here?”
“You’re supposed to tell him we’re not here, Joey. It’s not that difficult.”
“Right, but it’s happened more than once. And he’s inquisitive, and he doesn’t really have a life. No kids, no wife. And it always felt like he wanted to hang out, maybe figure out why you and I were always going out on these little excursions.”
I glared at him. “So you felt sorry for him?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know what the big deal is. I didn’t tell him anything, and he’s a cool guy anyway.”
“Joey — listen to yourself! We can’t let him help us. Hell, how could he even help us?”
“I’m not saying he could,” Joey answered. “I’m just saying he might know something, or get us information. He’s connected, and it sounds like our guy is in Frey’s world too, so it’s a good relationship to have.”
“I don’t like relationships.”
“Clearly.”
I was grumpy, but I still didn’t want someone digging around my business. Either one of my businesses.
As usual, though, I trusted Joey’s gut almost as much as I trusted my own, so I figured that if Joey was vouching for this distributor, I could at least give him the benefit of the doubt. Joey, I knew, wouldn’t have told him about any of our ‘adventures’ together, and —
“Joey,” I said.
He turned, quickly. “What’s up?”
“You told him we went on ‘adventures’ together?”
“No, I, uh… I mean I didn’t really have any other way of explaining…”
“You realize how that sounds, don’t you?”
He laughed. “Oh come on, old man. He doesn’t think we’re…”
“Together?”
He laughed again. “No, I guarantee you he doesn’t think that. He knows I’m not gay.”
“Why?”
“Because Shalice and I have gotten a beer with him. He’s met her.”
“But…”
“But I never told him you weren’t.” He shrugged.
“Right, I said. “Thanks for that.”
“You got it, boss.” He paused, silently considering something for a moment. “Hey, listen. I mentioned Shalice, and… and I know it’s hard for me to think clearly. I’m sorry for bringing Frey into this, no matter how little he’s actually going to know. I just… I guess I was being rash, trying to get as much on our side as possible.”
I immediately forgot all about my anger toward Joey for pulling in Frey. I knew exactly how Joey felt, and I knew exactly what I would have done in his situation.
“Joey,” I said. “I’m with you, man. I get it. You don’t owe me an apology. I’m the one that got us into this mess, remember? And I’m the one who’s going to get us out of it. If you and Frey want to help, that’s fine by me.”
He looked out the small window for a moment, then back at me. “You sure about that?”
“Dead sure, Joey.”
“Sounds good, boss. Let’s feel him out, see if we think he can be helpful at all, and if he’s interested. He might just want a free ride on the boat. But if he’s gunning for some action, and he understands the risks, he could be an asset.”
I knew that an innocent civilian just ‘gunning for some action’ would never be anything more than a major liability in any situation, but I nodded along anyway. “Sounds good to me. When’s he going to be here?”
17
I’D MET JONATHAN FREY A couple of times, though there was nothing much about him that I’d deemed memorable, so I almost didn�
�t recognize him when he walked in. After he’d looked both ways as soon as he entered the front door, as if he was about to cross a busy street, I knew it was him. The two things I did remember about him was that he looked far younger than he actually was and had a nervous tick or something about him.
He was on edge, jittery. Even as he strolled over to my empty bar he was looking around, but not in a ‘taking it all in’ sort of way, like a tourist, but like a ‘something’s going to jump out at me’ sort of way.
“H — hey,” he said.
I glared at Joey. This is the guy you thought might be able to help us? I thought. He can’t even get a single word out without losing his mind.
I wondered if he was a sociopath. Sometimes these types seemed almost normal, almost balanced, and then lost their shit. Maybe he was one of those.
“Hey, Frey,” Joey said, a huge smile on his face. “How you been?”
“Yeah, hey Joey,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. “I — I’m good.”
This guy a junkie or something? I thought. I reached a hand out. “Good to see you again, chap.”
Chap?
Apparently I had a nervous tick of my own: calling weird people weird things I’d never call anyone else.
“Oh, yeah, hey there Mason,” he said. He sounded Canadian, really digging into those ‘A’ sounds. “How are you?”
“I’m good, thanks for asking. Can I pour you a drink?”
He frowned, as if I’d just asked him if I could sleep with his sister. Finally, after far too many seconds, his face melted back to normal and he looked me in the eye. “Oh, uh, thanks. Yeah, maybe a beer?”
I sighed. “Any particular kind of beer?”
“Just, uh, something lighter?”
“Lighter than what?”
I guess he had inferred my growing impatience, so he suddenly snapped to attention and then swung into a barstool. “Sorry. You know what? I’ll have a bourbon.”
I cocked my head sideways. Okay, this is a change of pace. The guy in front of me had just won a couple points in my book.
I nodded, turned around, and grabbed an interesting choice: a 291-distilled raw spirit, from Colorado Springs, that I had aged myself in a small barrel. I poured three glasses over our standard large cubes and pushed Frey’s toward him.
He took a long, slow sip. He examined the color, then sniffed it.
Whatever preconceived notions I’d had about the man quickly vanished. Still, I wondered what had brought upon the strange nervousness he seemed to be suffering from.
“Sorry,” he said. Joey and I looked at him, simultaneously. “I… I know I sound nervous. It’s just that…”
I looked over at Joey. What did you tell this guy? I thought. He shrugged in response.
“Speak your mind, Frey,” I said. “We don’t bite.”
He took a long, deep breath. “It’s just that I… I couldn’t help but jump to some conclusions.”
For the thousandth time that day I glare at Joey. I stared bullets through him. Again, as if it was no big deal, he simply shrugged.
“What sort of conclusions are we talking about, Mr. Frey?”
Jonathan Frey took another sip of whiskey, swallowed, then seemed to visibly steel himself. For a moment I lost sight of the small, timid man in front of me and instead saw an experienced, been-around-the-block-a-few-times savvy guy. He looked from me to Joey, then back to me.
“You kill people for a living?”
I laughed out loud. “Wh — what the hell? Where'd that come from?”
“Look,” he said. “I really don’t care one way or another. I just want to know.”
For the firs time since I'd met him, I didn’t know what to say. Of all the things I’d expected upon meeting with Jonathan Frey, one of our most loyal distributors, being completely taken aback was not one of them.
“Uh… no,” I said.
“Come on,” he said again, his voice growing more and more confident. “You can tell me. I’ve heard things, up in the city.”
“Like what?”
“Like, you know, rumors.”
“Rumors.”
“Like there’s a place down south you can send people, to uh, get gone.”
“Get gone?” It was Joey’s turn to laugh. “What is that, some sort of turn-of-the-century phrase?”
He shrugged, then helped himself to another glass of the 291. “How should I know?” He poured the drink, then looked up at us again with an odd crooked smile. “I’m just a distributor.”
“Then why the hell are you digging around in my business?”
“Hey, brother,” he said. “Joey called me, remember? You want to know more about this Rockford Elizondo situation?”
I nodded, then put my hand over his drink before he could take a sip. “What do you mean, situation?”
“I mean it’s a situation. Every distributor on the East Coast knows about it. Shipping tycoon, works for one of the major importers. But he’s in with some bad dudes.”
I removed my hand and let him take a quick drink. “And you think we’re those bad dudes?”
His eyes widened a bit as he swallowed his sip, then he smiled and shook his head. “N — no, not that. Sorry, no offense. You guys just don’t have, uh, oomph.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Joey asked. “I got oomph.”
“Yeah,” I added. “Joey’s the oomphiest guy around.”
“Hey,” he said. “No offense. You guys are great. Chill, unlike a lot of my clients. No purchasing crap to deal with, and Joey’s always open to a recommendation.”
He sat back a bit, no doubt feeling more in his element. “And I do know my way around the industry, so I like giving helpful recommendations.”
He paused for a moment, then remembered his train of thought. “It’s just that you guys seem to be a, uh, bit smaller of an operation. Just two people, right? Nothing fancy. I like that, actually. Keeps things simple.”
I leaned in, letting the little gut I had get squashed by the edge of my bar, and pushed my face right up into Frey’s circle of comfort. It was no-man’s land for a bartender — you never got up into someone’s face like that, and you never let anyone else get up into yours, unless you meant business.
“Frey,” I said, my voice a whisper. We were the only three people in the bar, and probably the only three people alive in a half-mile radius, as my place wasn’t exactly in the middle of the hustle-and-bustle of a tourist town. But the whisper added to the effect. “Listen, man. I like you — always have. Joey’s got a bit more of a hankering for you for some reason, and I respect that. But — and we’re just going to leave it here — we need some information. Because of… because of our situation.”
“Is your situation that you need to kill Elizondo?”
I pushed up from leaning over the bar and crossed my arms. “Alright, champ. Who told you that, and why in the world do you think we’re out for blood?”
He smiled again, still maintaining that look of a deer in the headlights: unsure of his next move, but still confident that he was where he needed to be. “Look,” he said. “I don’t. Honestly. It’s a guess. I don’t know how these things work, but think about how it looks to the rest of us. The guys up in the city are saying things like, ‘there’s a guy for that,’ and ‘they’ll take of that,’ and then they talk about someone down south who… does stuff for them, I guess.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Guys who know people like Elizondo, and guys I prefer not to know. They’re everywhere up there — they practically run the importing business, especially for the spirits industry.”
“So you know, or don’t know, some of these guys,” Joey said. “And they’re talking about someone down south of Charleston who can ‘get things done?’”
He nodded.
“Things like what?”
“Well put the pieces together, man. You remember that car bombing a year ago?”
I knew exactly what he was talking abou
t. Yeah, I thought. The one up on the highway.
I sniffed. “I thought it was a car fire. Just an accident.”
“Well whatever it was, the police never did a thorough investigation. Just enough to figure out who the guy was. The talk around the city is that it was some rich schmuck, a guy who lived up in Jersey somewhere and came down to Charleston to, uh, get his fill of some less-than-reputable entertainment.”
Frey was being unnecessarily kind. The ‘schmuck’ he was referring to was worse than dirt. A true son-of-a-bitch, the kind with money and a sick desire to spend it in despicable ways.
And his preferred ‘flavor’ of entertainment was underage children, specifically boys.
He’d sidled up to the bar one night, flashed the mark — a small coin — at me, and told me he’d ‘come for what he deserved.’ Then he’d ordered a shot.
An Irish Car Bomb.
I smiled. It usually wasn’t that easy.
Typically the marks were a little more subtle. They either didn’t have as much money as this schmuck had or they just cared more about the trail they were trying not to leave. Either way I took care of them, got them all exactly what they deserved.
Joey had started helping me out years ago. He was a capable soldier, a fine strategic thinker, and — best of all — he had character. He felt the same thing I felt when these assholes would come knocking.
They deserved to die, and I was the man to help them with it.
It wasn’t personal, and it wasn’t a pleasure. It was just a chore, like cleaning the bar after a hard day’s work or taking out the trash. I was good at it, and I liked the feeling of taking care of something that was usually a bit higher-level than local police but still under the radar of the Feds.
Still, I always thought we were subtle. Sure, there were the few times the smoking hull of a vehicle would be a bit difficult to hide away, but the vast majority of the time Joey or I could easily dispose of the bodies in a way that was discreet, simple, and cost-effective, and it had the added benefit of fitting the ‘circle of life.’
I called it ‘fish-baiting.’ To fish bait a dead mark, we’d just bleach the body to remove anything that could be somehow chemically traced back to us and then cart it out to the water on a tiny fishing boat, then dump it out by the breakers using a couple cinder blocks and a lot of heavy-gauge fishing line.