The Kill Clause

by Gregg Hurwitz

  Tim laughed. “Thanks, I’m fine.”

  Dumone gestured for Tim to sit on the couch, then sank into a dusty brown La-Z-Boy. His eyes seemed unusually shadowed, his skin stretched tight across his temples.

  Tim raised his hands, let them fall back into his lap. “So?”

  “I didn’t really call you here for a reason. Just wanted to see you.” Dumone raised a handkerchief and coughed into it, and again Tim noticed faint specks of blood on the cloth.

  “You okay? Want me to get you some water?”

  Dumone waved him off. “Fine, fine. I’m used to it.” The handkerchief settled in his lap, clutched in a knuckle-thick hand. “Early on, when I was first married, I worked construction some weekends. The job didn’t pay so hot, the wife and I had just gotten hitched. Extra dough, you know? They had me swinging a sledgehammer, knocking down plaster in these old houses in Charlestown. The ceilings—” He coughed again, one finger twirling in the air, indicating the ceiling, holding the strain of the story. “Asbestos. Of course, we didn’t know then.” He shook his head. “Not good. I was invincible anyway, dodging bullets by day.” He smiled, and again his eyes gathered that gleam that said he was astute enough to find amusement in all matters.

  “We were all invincible once. And smarter.”

  “Yes,” Dumone said. “Yes.” A wistfulness touched his features. “I’m sorry that I haven’t known you longer, Tim. Rob and Mitch, hell, those two are like sons to me. The kind of sons you worry about a little—you smooth down their hair and send them out into the world hoping to God they’ll do okay. And they have,” he added quickly. “They’ve done real fine. But you. I hardly know you well enough, but I’d guess you’d be the kind of son you’d want to pass things on to, if you had anything worth passing on.”

  “That’s quite a compliment,” Tim said.

  “Yes. Yes, it is.”

  “I’ve enjoyed meeting you, too. Our…friendship…” “Friendship” seemed an odd word for whatever they shared. “I’m glad you’re in there steering the ship during our meetings.”

  Dumone nodded, a thoughtful frown on his face. “I suppose someone has to.”

  They sat not much longer, enduring the awkward silence.

  “Well,” Dumone said. “Thanks for stopping by.”

  24

  THE NEXTEL CHIRPED annoyingly, pulling Tim from the sweaty daytime sleep into which he had finally drifted. He rolled over on his mattress and grabbed the phone.

  Robert’s Marlboro voice came too loud through the receiver. “Motherfucker hasn’t left the house since we got here last night. Spends all his time tinkering around in that basement downstairs, where they found all that voodoo shit.”

  Tim rubbed his eyes hard, knowing it would leave them red and bloodshot but not caring. “Uh-huh.”

  “His house is over by the garment district downtown. How far away are you?”

  “About a half hour,” Tim lied.

  “All right. Well, the Stork got us tapped in to his phone lines from a junction box up the street. Debuffier’s mother just called to remind his ass not to forget their lunch. Noon at El Comao. Know where that is?”

  “Cuban joint on Pico near the Federal Building?”

  “That’s the one. So he’ll be peeling out of here in about twenty minutes. I thought you’d want to swing by, take a sneak-and-peek through the house with us. Mitch is gonna bring some explosive sheet along in case we decide to set a charge now.”

  “I made clear you were doing surveillance only,” Tim said.

  “I know, I know, but we’re all getting the sense that Motherfucker stays bedded down. We just thought it wouldn’t hurt to have some explosives on hand, in case the…”

  Mitchell’s voice in the background: “—optimal—”

  “—opportunity arose. It might be our only window for a while.”

  “No way. You just started surveillance yesterday. All we’re doing today is taking a look through the interior to get the lay.”

  “All right, fine. We’ll just take a gander, then. Motherfucker’s at 14132 Lanyard Street. Oh, and Rackley? How are you gonna know where to find us?”

  “I’ll find you,” Tim said.

  “We’re blended into this block like a panther in the jungle, my friend. We’re—”

  “Let me guess. Service van with tinted rear windows.”

  A long silence.

  “I’ll see you soon.” Tim hung up, slid his gun into his waistband, grabbed the Nextel but not the Nokia, and headed for the door. He paused with his hand on the knob. Backtracking, he retrieved a pair of black leather gloves from the bag beside his mattress. With lead stitched into the lengths of the fingers and positioned strategically across the bands of the knuckles, the gloves could put horse-kick power behind a simple punch. Tim threw them into his pocket and headed downstairs to his car. Once he got to within a mile of Debuffier’s house, he pulled over and idled at the curb.

  Both sides of the street were lined with garment sellers’ stalls, elongated rooms jammed into the same structure like piano keys. Many of the booths had roll-up, storage-style doors, opening the entire storefronts to the sidewalks. The district had a Third World feel to it—drab functionality and cheap, raw product offset by bright colors and excess. A young boy burrowed into a chest-high heap of Dodgers shirts. Enormous spools of fabric were propped against walls, doorways, tables. A mound of moccasins spilled out onto the curb. The air smelled of candy and burnt churros.

  Wheelbarrows, parked trucks, and exhaust crammed the street. A guy with comb-mark-stiff hair strutted past, wearing a sweatshirt with a peeling Versace emblem, his pinky intertwined with that of a girl holding a purse proclaiming Guci—marked down one c.

  Bastard offspring of the city of varnish.

  The guy threw Tim the stink-eye, probably figuring he was checking out his girlfriend, so Tim looked away to defuse matters. A young man with a bushy beard came by, T-shirts draped over his arm. He caught Tim looking and held up a sample. The shirt featured Jedediah Lane’s head midexplosion, under a bloodred caption that read TERRORISM BLOWS. Tim studied the photo as if it contained some inscrutable secret or the power to pardon. For an instant he wasn’t sure whether the caption referred to Lane himself or Lane’s assassin. At the vendor’s approach, Tim shook his head, and the man moved on.

  With laughing Mexican colors and a robust husband-wife team working the register, the stall beside Tim’s car drew his attention. It exclusively featured wedding-cake ornaments. Tim sat staring at the plastic brides and grooms of all shapes and ethnicities, feeling his temperature starting to rise, wondering how a marriage between two people who loved each other madly could feel as though it were slipping away.

  With relief he saw that he’d passed the requisite ten minutes to put him at Debuffier’s at the specified time, and he drove off. He parked several blocks away and strolled around the corner. Chipped-stucco houses rose humbly behind cheap metal fences. Two kids with basketball players’ numbers shaved into the backs of their heads zipped past on elongated skateboards, catching air off a buckle in the sidewalk left over from the last earthquake. Rusted cars languished along the curb on both sides of the street, and—to Robert’s credit—there were a handful of service vans, which made sense given the block’s apparent demographics. The decals and signs were varied and colorful. Armando’s Glass Works. Freddy’s Industrial Cleaning. The Martinez Bros Carpet Care. Several of the eponymous entrepreneurs were spending their Saturday sitting on browning lawns, petting Rottweilers and drinking Michelob from the can. The unusually brisk wind carried the sweet-rot smell of lukewarm beer and old wood.

  On the north side of the street, Debuffier’s house loomed larger than its neighbors, a sprawling wooden abomination of no discernible architectural style. The porch’s arched entrance should have lent a warmth to the house, but the wood was fragmented, the splintered ends jutting out to add sloppy denticulation to the mouthlike hole. The roof, even more perplexing, was a cacophony of style
s—here pitched, there hip-and-valley. Sitting importantly back from the street behind a lawn long since gone to dirt, the house itself was not so much large as complex—a collision, most likely, of the labors of rival builders over virtually unrelated phases of building.

  Most of the parked vans’ side windows were tinted. Tim crossed to the north side of the street, opening up a better angle from which to glance back into the van interiors through the windshields, but the majority of the vans were partitioned. Freddy’s Industrial Cleaning looked most suspect. From how low it was sitting on the shocks, it was housing either heavy equipment or a few full-grown men. The Caucasian name didn’t help either.

  Tim walked over, pretending to fumble in his pockets for the keys. He paused at the driver’s door, waiting. The clicking of the doors’ automatic locks told him he’d bet right. He slid into the seat, facing forward, and pretended to adjust the radio despite the fact that the neighboring yards were all empty. The van smelled of sweat and stale coffee, and the dash was high; Tim wondered if the Stork had trouble seeing over it when he drove.

  He moved his lips only slightly when he spoke. “Not bad, boys.”

  A crumpled VanMan Rental Agency receipt was wedged in the cup holder, beside a Big Gulp. Tim could just make out the name on the top line, written in the Stork’s shaky hand: Daniel Dunn.

  Danny Dunn, Tim thought. An appropriate alias.

  Robert’s voice, peeved and cracked from dehydration, lofted over his shoulder. “How the hell did you find us?”

  “Just sniffed you out.” Tim removed his lead gloves from his back pocket and slid them on. “Have you switched the car out?”

  “Yessiree,” the Stork said. “I brought the van first thing this morning.”

  “Where’s the car you sat in last night?”

  Robert’s gruff voice again. “I peeled out and returned it, then bused back. Relax—we’re all clear.”

  “Good.”

  “Debuffier left early for lunch, so let’s get on it.” A set of keys tapped Tim on the shoulder, and he took them and started the van. “His house is on a double lot, so it backs on the street one over. Pull around the block and park there—much quieter.”

  “There’s a gap in the back fence begging to be utilized,” the Stork said.

  “Where’s Mitchell?”

  “Over there. He’ll meet us at the back door in five.”

  Tim eased around the block. “Good vehicle,” he said. “Silent. Ordinary. Forgettable.”

  “I’m glad you’re pleased with my selection, Mr. Rackley.” The Stork sounded incredibly proud of himself, almost gleeful. “I even took back the first van they rented me because it gave off a distinctive rattle.”

  “Kind of like you,” Robert said.

  Tim parked a few feet away from the triangular gap in the fence. The street was dead quiet, so he got out and pulled open the rear doors. Already wearing latex gloves, the Stork and Robert burst from the back, inhaling deeply and fanning their shirts. Robert ducked through the fence gap immediately. The Stork shouldered a black bag by the strap, staggering under its weight. Tim took the bag from him, slammed the rear doors, and ushered him through the fence.

  Mitchell was crouching at the rear door, Robert at his side. Mitchell’s eyes lit on the Nextel’s bulge in Tim’s pocket, and he stood up violently. “Turn off the cell phone. Now.”

  Tim and the Stork froze. Tim reached down and turned off the phone. “You have electric blasting caps on you?”

  “That’s right.”

  If Mitchell had electric blasting caps, Tim’s cell phone should have been nowhere in the vicinity. When induced, Nextels, like most mobiles, kick out an RF signal just prior to ringing, responding to the network and identifying themselves as operational. The induced current, sufficient to ignite an electric blasting cap, can set off a boom ball before the phone even chirps. Tim understood now why Robert hadn’t suggested they maintain phone contact during the entry.

  Tim’s eyes went to the explosive sheet at Mitchell’s feet, a twenty-pound roll of place-mat-thick PETN, pentaerythritetetranitrate being a bitch to pronounce but easy to rip or cut, a stick of gum to C4’s Bubblicious. It peeked out from Mitchell’s det bag, olive drab, the shade of death.

  “Can’t you follow instructions?” Tim tried to keep anger from his voice. “I made extremely clear you were to do nothing but surveil.”

  “And we haven’t. I happened to have the bag with me—”

  “We’ll deal with this later.” Tim nodded to the door. “What’s the situation here?”

  Mitchell returned to his anthropologist’s crouch by the knob. “It’s a tough one. Outswinging with a latch protector, so we can’t work the credit-card slide.”

  The Stork set his hands on his hips, then gestured Mitchell aside with an impatient flick of his hand. “Move.”

  Adjusting his glasses, he leaned forward for a closer look at the lock. He brought his face to within inches of it, tilting his head like a predator inhaling scent. He spoke softly, with a singsong cadence, a girl talking to her favorite doll. “Restricted-keyway tumbler lock with reinforced strikes. Aren’t you a pretty one? Yes, you are.”

  Tim, Robert, and Mitchell’s exchange of amused looks was cut short when the Stork reared back, his eyes still intently focused on the lock but his hand extended as if beckoning a waiter. His plump fingers snapped. “Bag.”

  Tim swung the bag down to his feet. The Stork’s hand rustled within and removed a can of spray lubricant. He inserted a thin extension tube into the nozzle and directed the spray toward the cylinder. “We’ll just lubricate you up, won’t we? That’ll make things easier for us.”

  Next he reached for a pick gun. The tool, with its pull-handle trigger that set a thin protruding tip in continuous motion, resembled an electric hand drill or an elaborate sexual device. Fisting the unit, the Stork slid the tip into the lubed lock and initiated it, working a complicated angle through a precise series of clutchings and readjustments. He set his ear to the door, presumably to listen to the pins jumping above the shear line, his other hand gripping the knob. His mouth was shifted to the right, clamped down on his lower lip. He seemed oblivious to the fact that he was in the company of others.

  “There you go, darling. Open up for me.”

  There was a shift in the noise of the pins, a click indicating a sudden symmetry or resonance, and the Stork’s other hand moved lightning-fast, twisting the knob, which gave up a half turn.

  He looked at the others with a satisfied and slightly worn-out grin. Tim half expected him to light up a cigarette. The Stork’s smile faded quickly as he leaned forward, setting his shoulder against the door.

  “Wait,” Tim said. “What if there’s an ala—?”

  The Stork shoved the door open.

  The insistent beeping caused Tim’s mouth to go dry, but the Stork calmly walked over to a keypad on the wall and punched in a code. The alarm ceased.

  They entered, pistols drawn, and listened for any signs of movement in the large chamber of the house. Mitchell and Robert had matching Colt .45s, single-action semiautos that require cocking before the first round can be shot. They fire with only three pounds of trigger pressure instead of the fifteen a double-action demands. The big-bore guns were powerful, hairtrigger, and illegal, not unlike both brothers.

  “How did you lift the code?” Tim whispered.

  “I didn’t. Every alarm company’s got a reset code.” The Stork pointed to the emblem at the base of the keypad. “This one’s an Iron-Force—30201.”

  “As simple as that?”

  “Yessiree.”

  They stepped through a small room containing a broken washing machine and into the kitchen. Food-caked plates and soggy boxes. Mustard yellow linoleum peeling up at the edges. Endless empty rum bottles and a thin layer of crumbs covering the countertops.

  A faint tinny echo sounded somewhere in the house, slightly animated, almost vocal. Tim’s hand shot up, flat, fingers slightly spread, a po
int man’s patrol warning. The others stood perfectly still. A minute of silence passed, then another. “Did you hear that?”

  “No, nothing,” the Stork said.

  “Probably the pipes knockin’.”

  “Let’s get moving,” Tim said, his voice still lowered. “Stork—get back outside. A two-tap horn alert if he happens to come back early.”

  “He did leave early.”

  “That’s why you’re gonna keep an eye out for us.” Tim waited for the Stork to scurry outside. “Safe the house and meet back here in two minutes. I’ll take the upstairs.”

  “Look,” Robert said, not bothering to whisper, “we’ve been on the house all night, all morning. There’s no one else—”

  “Do it,” Tim said. He disappeared through the doorway toward the front of the house, moving through several rooms stuffed with oddities—boxes of auto calendars, overturned tables, stacks of bricks. A pile of bright fabric curled around the base of the stairs; Debuffier had probably bought it on garment row. Tim searched the upstairs rooms, which reeked of backed-up plumbing and incense. All the mirrors had been covered, draped in swatches of colorful cloth. Debuffier either fancied himself a vampire or feared his own reflection; from his booking photo, Tim would’ve put money on the latter. Each room was empty and uninhabited; the master bedroom was probably downstairs. Tim took care not to leave footprints where dust had collected more heavily on the floor.

  Robert and Mitchell were waiting for Tim in the kitchen.

  Tim’s watch showed 12:43. “Clear?”

  “Except for the basement door,” Mitchell said. “Solid steel set in a steel frame. Locked.”

  “We’ll get the Stork on it in a minute.” Tim snugged the .357 against the small of his back. “Let’s take a slower turn through the ground floor. Focus on details so we can draw up a full blueprint of the place later.”

  Another sound, a metallic moan, this one undeniable. Tim felt his stomach constrict, his mouth cotton. He inched in the direction from which the sound had come, through the other doorway, the twins just behind him.