by Michael Kerr
Tom waited, expecting a denial, explanation, or some attempt to justify the acts McClane had profited by. The unexpected silence was disconcerting.
Jack hiked his meaty shoulders and gave Tom a wan smile as he slid open the window. The following few seconds would subsequently haunt Tom for the rest of his life, until at the age of seventy-eight, in a rest home near Epping, Alzheimer’s would finally steal away all memories, good and bad, leaving him as empty as a freshly squeezed orange skin.
Even as he realised what was about to happen, Tom was too late to intercede.
Jack got up onto the windowsill with the drum of fish food still clutched in his hand and just stepped out, to vanish from sight and plummet down past the office windows of the lower floors.
Tom ran to the window, gripped both sides of the frame and leaned out in time to see Jack hit the pavement far below.
A middle-aged passer-by was confronted with the spectacle of a man compacting in front of him, to be converted into a bloody mound. Jack somehow landed feet first. His thighbones punched through his pelvis to lodge under his armpits, and his backbone was driven up through his skull. He felt and thought nothing as a small cloud of beige-coloured powder drifted down, discharged from the fish food canister to coat his corpse in a fine layer.
Backing away from the window, Tom checked his watch, so that he would be able to correctly state the time, as well as the date and location of the...incident.
“Charming! Fucking charming!” Tom said, knowing that he would be stuck behind his desk making out reports and filling in forms for days. And yet a part of him grudgingly admired McClane for having the balls to do the right thing. Though he hated the man for his duplicity, which had no doubt cost many lives over his years of association with Santini.
The bar of the Kenton Court Hotel was the venue Matt picked for a get-together with Tom, Pete Deakin, Kenny Ruskin from CCS, Nick Marino – who was on the mend – and, of course, Beth.
“Nice to have you back, Mr Gabriel,” Ron Quinn quipped as he set a tray of drinks down on the tabletop. “Will I have to check the place for hidden weapons when you all leave?”
Matt grinned at the big, red-bearded Cornishman, who was now his friend.
Ron didn’t linger. He would join them later, when invited, for what would prove to be a serious late night session.
Flexing his now unencumbered leg, Matt sipped at the single malt and moved his chair a little closer to Beth’s. Over three weeks had passed since the face-off with Noon, and in that time his life had changed considerably, and for the better. He and Beth were making plans together, and he was more content than he had ever been. Marriage, kids, family holidays and old-fashioned Christmases were on the cards, though they had not discussed it, just both knew it was a real possibility. The ties that now bound them were too tightly knotted to be picked free. When something is right, it’s right.
As for the immediate future, Matt and Beth would stay the night in Ron’s best room. It was Saturday tomorrow, and after a late breakfast they would drive down to Hove. Matt’s dad was not well, but had sounded perkier on the phone of late, had cut down on the cigarettes, and was even taking regular walks along the front. Miracles can happen. Arthur Barnes was mellowing, coming to terms with how things were, and not how he wished them to be. It was called adapting. He wanted to meet Beth and chew the fat. And maybe talk shop and do a little overdue bonding with his son.
Ignorance can be bliss. Neither Matt nor Beth could know that even greater tribulation than they had survived lurked on the horizon, primed to blight their lives beyond any rational contemplation. Like all great mysteries, the future unfolds in its own time, to bring with it all manner of joy and misery in its passing.
# # # # #
About The Author
Michael Kerr is the pseudonym of Mike Smail the author of several crime thrillers and two children’s novels. He lives and writes in the Yorkshire Wolds, and has won, been runner-up, and short listed on numerous occasions for short story competitions with Writing Magazine and Writers’ News.
After a career of more than twenty years in the Prison Service, Mike now uses his experience in that area to write original, hard-hitting crime novels.
Connect With Michael Kerr and Head Nook Books and discover other great titles.
Web:
www.michaelkerr.org – Michael Kerr’s official site
www.headnookbooks.com – Head Nook Books publishing firm
Twitter:
@headnookbooks – Head Nook Books twitter feed
Smashwords
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/michaelkerr - Michael Kerr at Smashwords
Other Books By Michael Kerr
DI Matt Barnes Series
A Reason To Kill
Lethal Intent
A Need To Kill
Other Crime Thrillers
Deadly Reprisal (sample included)
‘A Reacher Kind of Guy’ – Aftermath
Deadly Requital
Deadly Reprisal – Sample
PROLOGUE
THE only safe secret is one that no one else is privy to. Steve Taylor knew that. Maybe he would be safe from retribution, but was going to believe otherwise and keep looking over his shoulder. He’d seen the results of complacency firsthand, and taken full advantage of those that had underestimated him as an enemy. One of his main strengths was that he had no real fear of the hereafter, only the here and now. But that didn’t mean he had a death wish. Every day above ground was a bonus.
Leaving the cottage, Steve trudged beneath a canopy of palm fronds, out onto the beach; a cooler full of Coors Light swinging from his left hand. At the small of his back, tucked in the waistband of his shorts – hidden from view under a loose fitting Hawaiian-style shirt – he could feel the comforting pressure of the Browning Hi-power pistol. It gave him what would soon prove to be a false sense of security.
Sitting on the still warm sand, Steve watched a couple of kids throwing a Frisbee to each other in the fading light, as he drained a can of Coors, belched, and lit a cigarette.
A quarter mile distant, a lone figure approached, stopping every few yards to bend down. Steve smiled. They – whoever they were – called it the Sanibel Stoop. Not many tourists could resist picking up the shells that were left high and dry at low tide. He’d done it himself. It was a somehow therapeutic and addictive pastime.
He pondered on events that had conspired to lead him to this time and place in his life. He was on the run from the police, and the mob. However tranquil the present surroundings, he knew that his life expectancy was in serious danger of being explosively curtailed. He had done a deal with the cops; his continued freedom in return for ensuring that when Eddie Moscone went to trial, the crime boss would get life for his hand in at least a dozen killings. But he had slipped his minders in London and flown the coop, to start over in the U.S. He was out of the loop, living one day at a time, knowing that everyone wanted a piece of him.
Buddy Miller thought that he looked the part. He was wearing an oversize, straw cowboy hat, mirrored shades, a baggy pair of knee-length shorts, and plastic sandals. His beer gut and thin, white-skinned legs promoted the appearance of someone no more sinister than a middle-aged guy who’d just hit the beach and was doing what all the other visiting morons did; collect shells.
Less than a hundred yards away from his mark. There was no hurry. Buddy picked up a large conch, examined it, and walked across to where the surf fizzed on the wet sand, to hunker down and rinse the shell before popping it into the white plastic bag, on the bottom of which rested a Glock 17 fitted with a suppressor.
Three pelicans glided by, scant inches above the ocean’s surface. The man who now called himself Jerry Mason thought that they looked prehistoric, like pterodactyls. The big, dull orange sun was now slipping quickly over the horizon, making a fitting backdrop to silhouette the large-beaked birds.
“Hey, Taylor?” A voice behin
d him.
Fuck! Even as he turned his head, he knew that it was over. How he’d been found didn’t matter. He was going to die: Knew that the hand inside the plastic bag was pointing a gun at him, but reacted instinctively, twisting, diving sideways as he reached back under his shirt to grasp the butt of the Browning.
Steve’s last image was the reflection of a glorious sunset in the stranger’s shades. A split second later he simply ceased to exist as a bullet punched through his forehead to pulverize his brain and take the back of his skull out, blowing his twitching body into the surf. There were no last thoughts, regrets, or even time to feel fear.
Buddy looked both ways. He’d waited until the two kids had run off, after being summoned by an unseen voice. It was mid-November, low season, and until the Thanksgiving holiday brought hordes down to infest Florida, it was relatively quiet. He stepped forward, put another slug in the mark, and released his grip on the pistol in the now holed bag. Spent a couple of seconds watching dozens of half-inch-long fish glint silver as they darted in to gulp down the blood and tissue that was now liberated from the corpse’s head, before he ambled up the beach, through a fringe of palms to enter Taylor’s cottage and quickly, expertly search it. He found nothing.
Back in the rented Ford Taurus with false plates, Buddy opened his cell phone and made a call to New York City.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Buddy.”
“And?”
“I made the sale.”
“Sweet. See you when you land.”
Buddy broke the connection and drove off slowly along West Gulf Drive. Fifteen minutes later he was crossing the causeway to the mainland. Sanibel appeared to be a very pleasant island, all low-rise and laid back; the type of place he would like to revisit someday with Muriel, his wife of thirty-one years.
Picking up I-75 north, Buddy planned to spend the night up in Tampa, and maybe get himself laid before flying back to the Big Apple. This job had made a nice change. Buddy liked to travel, it broadened the mind.
CHAPTER ONE
“TAYLOR turned up,” DS Regina (Reg) Stuart said, placing a mug of black coffee on her boss’s desktop, after first pushing a sheaf of papers to one side to make room for it.
“Music to my ears, Reg,” DI Ben Drury said, closing and tossing a dog-eared manila file onto a stack of others that were leaning Tower of Pisa fashion on the edge of his desk. “Where is the scumbag?”
“The States. In a morgue at Fort Myers in Florida.”
“Uh?”
“He was found with his brains blown out on some beach.”
Ben took a sip of coffee. “When?”
“Two days ago. He was staying at a small beach resort under the name of Jerry Mason. The local police put his prints through AFIS – the Automated Fingerprint Identification System – and came up with his real ID. He’d been lifted by Dade-Metro in Miami four years ago for GBH on a nightclub owner at South Beach. Charges weren’t filed, due to the complainant being killed in a hit and run. They couldn’t tie Taylor to it, but were sure he’d arranged for it to happen.”
“Shit! That puts us back to square one with Moscone. Without Taylor’s testimony, he’s untouchable.”
“I wonder how he found Taylor? We couldn’t.”
Ben sighed. “When he did a runner from Witness Protection, Moscone’s boys will have been watching, and followed him. End of story.”
“So what do we do now, boss?”
“Confirm that it really was Taylor who got capped. He was a slippery customer. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d faked his own death.”
“It’s definitely him. We got an attachment of autopsy photos sent through with the report. He’d dyed his hair, shaved off his beard, and the crabs had started in on him, but he was still recognizable. And he had an old SAS tattoo on his right arm. We haven’t got the print comparison through yet, but I think it’ll be a formality.”
“Is that it, Reg?”
“ ‘Fraid so, boss.”
“Okay, so let’s concentrate on other fish. No good crying over one that got away.”
Eddie Moscone was walking on air. The cops – and in particular the pricks in the Serious Crimes Squad, who’d been on his back for over two years – had fucked-up, royally. With Taylor dead, they had zilch. And anyone else who might have been thinking of making a deal with the filth would think twice, now that it was common knowledge of how the rogue hitman was traced to the sunshine state and whacked. It was a demonstration that disloyalty could seriously damage your health. And that running didn’t get you very far. The world really was a small place nowadays.
Eddie was in his office at the Raffaella Club. He was talking on a secure line to Joey Farino in New York.
“I owe you, Joey,” he said. “You need anythin’ taken care of this side of the pond, just name it.”
“I was only too happy to help out, Eddie,” Joey said. “That’s what friends are for. And it was no big deal. When the mark flew in, he got a cab into town and rented a car. All my guy had to do was pick his time and attach a gizmo to it. These satellite trackin’ devices are the business. No one can take a powder with technology like that keepin’ a fix on ‘em.”
“It’s a changin’ world, Joey. I can’t even work a fuckin’ DVD. I gotta get my daughter to do it for me.”
“That’s why we pay people to look after business, ain’t it, Eddie? Stay well.”
“An’ you, my friend. Ciao.”
Eddie sat back and smiled. Everything was back on an even keel. “Get me a JD, Tommaso,” he said to the hulking young man who was sitting in front of a wall-mounted plasma television, watching cartoons with the volume turned down.
Tommaso Corsi leapt to his feet and strode over to the corner bar. Poured three fingers of Jack Daniel’s into a lead crystal glass, and used tongs to put several wedges of ice in it. He worshipped Eddie, and would do anything for the man. Eddie Moscone was his half sister’s husband, and had taken him in as a thirteen-year-old, to raise as a son. If Eddie said jump, all Tommaso might ask is: ‘How high’?
“Now get Nick up here,” Eddie said, taking the proffered glass from the enormous hand that held it out rock steady in front of him.
Tommaso relinquished the JD and picked up the phone to ring down to the gaming room and summon Nick Darvo.
“Yeah, boss,” Nick said, entering the office after punching a four digit number into the panel on the door to gain entry. Eddie put security, not cleanliness, next to godliness. Even had a bank of wall-mounted monitors facing his desk, to watch all movement within the club, and outside the front and rear entrances. CCTV negated any surprise visits by the police or other unwelcome callers. It was just one of the many tools he employed to keep ahead of the game.
“I want you an’ Tommaso to go see the bitch that Taylor was shacked up with. I have it on good authority that he kept tapes of telephone conversations I had with him. He didn’t give them up to the police, or have them with him in Florida. Maybe she knows where they are. Find out. An’ one way or the other, hurt her.”
“How hurt do you want her, boss?” Nick asked.
Eddie put a manicured thumbnail to his front teeth and flicked it forward to produce a loud click.
Nick nodded and suppressed a smile. He enjoyed killing women.
Marcy Curtis had heard the news. Knew that Steve was dead. Even knew that it was odds on that Moscone was behind it. She had not known where Steve had gone, and was pissed off that he had not contacted her after he’d done a runner from the police, who were protecting him. She had done a lot of soul-searching; decided that she didn’t need him in her life anymore. The eighteen months spent together had been fun. But when the Old Bill had broken into their apartment in the middle of the night and dragged them both out of bed at gun point, she had started to see Steve for what he really was. The police had questioned her for nearly two days, before seemingly accepting that she had no idea of Steve’s involvement with Mosco
ne and the mob. Jesus! They’d said that Steve was a contract killer. She didn’t want to believe it, but on some level knew that it was probably true. It explained his mysterious trips, and the fact that he would not discuss his business, apart from saying that he was a trouble-shooter for an oil company, whatever that was supposed to mean.
It had been two plainclothes cops that came round to break the news. With no preamble, the DI – a steely-eyed, square-jawed type by the name of Drury – had told her that Steve had been found shot dead on a beach in Florida. Said that if she had been holding out on them over anything, then now was the time to come clean. She had stifled the tears and told him to go to hell.
Now, twenty-four hours after the cops’ visit, Marcy had got to grips with the situation. Had even phoned Steve’s brother in Durban, who she had never met, but whom Steve had talked about a lot.
Harry Taylor ran a small, elite safari operation, taking the well-heeled up north into the Hluhluwe Game reserve, which was one of the last refuges of the white rhino. Harry was reputedly a gung-ho type, who thrived on adventure and danger.
“Have you heard about Steve?” Marcy had said, after telling Harry who she was.