The Equalizer

by Michael Sloan

  “There is no redemption for men like us,” he whispered. “We are killers.”

  He raised the Smith & Wesson level with McCall’s head.

  McCall threw up the Peacemaker Cavalry Colt and fired.

  The bullet blew a hole in Daudov’s forehead.

  He toppled back from the force of it.

  McCall stayed sitting on the floor, trying to calm his breathing. He could take a few moments. Daudov wasn’t going anywhere. He looked down at the Colt Peacemaker in his hand. Very little kick. Pinpoint accuracy. The firearm still worked like he’d been standing on a Deadwood street in 1880 facing a gunfighter.

  McCall pulled himself to his feet. He limped around the couch, holding the Peacemaker Colt out in front of him, but Daudov stared up at the ceiling with sightless eyes. McCall leaned down and took the Smith & Wesson revolver out of Daudov’s hand. He walked through the alcove into the kitchen. He returned the revolver to the microwave. He walked into his bedroom and found all of the kitchen knives dumped on his bed along with the kitchen scissors and his carving set. He replaced them in their spots in the kitchen. He walked back into the living room, around the couch, and picked up the coffee table. He picked up the big book of Venice and the yellow lined notepad and put them back in their places. He picked up his laptop, which didn’t appear to be damaged and put it back on the low table. He picked up the fallen DVDs. He’d forgotten what he’d been watching. Some Westerns. Tombstone was on the top. Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer for McCall, the quintessential Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. The glass bowl hadn’t shattered, but the M&M’s were everywhere. He’d pick them up later. He heaved up the heavy Mark Newman Eel Walker sculpture, miraculously still in one piece, and put it gingerly back onto the table where it had rested. He knelt down beside the chess table, felt behind it, and retrieved Daudov’s fallen Taurus 740 pistol. He’d get rid of it later. For now he dropped it onto one of the bookshelves. He’d pick up the defenders of the Alamo and their Mexican opponents when he scooped up the M&M’s.

  He knelt down and picked up the Peacemaker redwood case and set it onto the coffee table. He put all of the bullets—except for one—back in their slots and the Peacemaker Colt in its place in the velvet and closed the lid.

  Then he called his cleaning crew.

  * * *

  McCall met Kostmayer in the upstairs bar of the Dead Rabbit Grocery & Grog in the Financial District, named after the group in Scorsese’s Gangs of New York. Kostmayer was seated at the end of the bar where the big fearsome eagle was perched. The bar had the feel of an Irish American immigrant’s saloon, sawdust on the floor and warm wood everywhere. It was packed. McCall slid onto the bar stool beside Kostmayer. The young Company agent was drinking a Gladstone, a mix of rye, aquavit, parfait amour, absinthe, bitters, and mace tincture. McCall ordered a Glenfiddich 21. There was a flatscreen TV above the bar. The news was playing, low volume.

  “You okay?” Kostmayer asked.

  “I saw my son play violin tonight. I’m great.”

  “Cleanup’s done.”

  “I took a long walk here. Thanks, Mickey.”

  The bartender brought McCall his Scotch and he took a swallow of it. He winced a little and his hand went instinctively to his throat. Kostmayer reached over a tentative hand and pulled back the collar of his shirt, exposing the vivid red line across his throat.

  “What was it?”

  “Cheese cutter.”

  “Nice. Who was he?”

  “You remember when we broke into that house on Sutton Place and rescued Natalya.”

  “You did the breaking-and-entering. I was just driving the getaway car.”

  “Bakar Daudov’s house. He was the handler for the girls at Dolls nightclub.”

  “Why did he come after you?”

  “He was angry that I killed his boss.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Because he wanted that honor for himself.”

  “How did he know where you lived?”

  “He must’ve followed me after I paid a visit to Dolls. And kept following me. He was biding his time. Waiting until my guard was down.”

  “How did he get in?”

  “Jimmied the lock on the apartment door.”

  “And you missed that?” Kostmayer clucked his tongue. “Must’ve been a hell of a fight. I noticed a big dent in the floor.”

  “He tried to drop that eel walking sculpture on my head.”

  “And it didn’t break when he did that?”

  “No.”

  “Too bad.”

  McCall gave him a sour look. “What’s your next assignment?”

  Kostmayer sipped his exotic drink.

  “I’m going to North Korea.”

  “What’s there, or is that need to know?”

  “A prison camp. Did you see the 60 Minutes report last year on one of their prison camps? Camp Fourteen? Brutal. This one is smaller, a ‘reeducation’ camp, outside Sinuiji, just over the Chinese border from Dandong. There are twelve thousand prisoners, men, women, and children, entire families. They’re slaves, being whipped and tortured, fathers being hanged in front of their sons and daughters for crimes ranging from talking to trying to escape. Mothers, too. The prisoners are also dying of starvation, illness, work accidents, and torture. Most of these people don’t know any other kind of life. The kids believe this is what life is. None of them have ever been outside the prison walls.”

  “What’s the mission objective?”

  Kostmayer shrugged. “Get them out.”

  “All twelve thousand?”

  “Once the gates are open…” He shrugged again. “We’ll take as many families in two choppers as we can. Give the others covering fire. The border is two miles from the camp. The Chinese will help us there. Unoffiically. You know the drill, McCall. Leave no one behind.”

  “Not even The Company could get a mission like that sanctioned by the joint chiefs.”

  “It’s not being sanctioned. Control doesn’t know anything about it. Private enterprise.”

  “You’re quitting The Company?”

  “No, unlike you, McCall, I don’t have demons invading my dreams. I’m just taking a sabbatical.”

  “This isn’t your idea.”

  Kostmayer finished his drink and motioned to the bartender for another round. McCall had just about finished his Glenfiddich 21.

  “Granny.”

  McCall raised his eyebrows. “He called you?”

  “I guess he thinks if I’m good enough to have your back, I’m good enough to have his.”

  “How many mercenaries do you have, including yourself and Granny?”

  “Six.”

  “How many North Korean prison guards?”

  “Forty or fifty.”

  The bartender came with their drinks and went away again.

  “Tough odds,” McCall said.

  Kostmayer looked at him and smiled.

  “Want to make it seven?”

  “I’m going in a different direction.”

  Something on the TV screen had caught McCall’s attention. Above a female news anchor a legend said breaking news and, behind her, a photograph of a woman in her mid-forties. McCall recognized her immediately as the wife who had been arguing with her husband on Fifth Avenue outside the Setai Hotel that afternoon.

  “Police answering a 911 call for domestic violence tonight are now investigating a homicide,” the female anchor said. “Susan Forrester was found beaten to death in her Upper West Side apartment.”

  The anchor disappeared off the TV screen, replaced by video footage of a man in his forties being taken into police custody. McCall recognized him as the husband who had slapped his wife and thrown her into the back of the cab while McCall had stood on the other side of Fifth Avenue and watched.

  The anchor’s voice continued, “John Forrester, the victim’s husband, a prominent attorney here in the city, has been arrested for her murder.”

  Kostmayer followed his gaze.

 
“People you know?”

  McCall shook his head.

  “No.”

  Kostmayer finished his second Gladstone cocktail and stood up. He took out some twenties and McCall started to protest. Kostmayer held up a hand to stop him.

  “There’s a great story about Rodgers and Hammerstein in London in rehearsals for South Pacific, or one of their musicals,” he said. “They walked through Berkeley Square on their way to lunch in some swank restaurant in Mayfair. They passed this Rolls-Royce dealer and there were two identical white Rolls-Royces in the window. A couple of hours later, as they strolled back through the square, they went into the showroom for a better took. They decided to buy the two Rolls. Hammerstein reached into his pocket for his checkbook, but Rodgers said, ‘No, no, let me get these. You got lunch.’ I’ll get the drinks, McCall. You got Kirov and Berezovsky.”

  McCall just smiled and acquiesced.

  So Kostmayer suspected the truth.

  “Let me know how your vacation trip turns out,” McCall said.

  “Too bad you can’t come along.”

  “Granny will have a plan.”

  Kostmayer held out his hand. “Well, if you ever need a whacko to stick his fingers in a fan…”

  McCall shook Kostmayer’s hand.

  “I’ll call you.”

  Kostmayer disappeared down the stairs to the street. McCall looked back at the television screen.

  The news anchor had moved on to another story, about local corruption, Susan Forrester’s violent death old news now.

  McCall sat alone and finished his Glenfiddich 21.

  CHAPTER 53

  McCall unlocked the door to his apartment and stepped into darkness and waited and listened this time. No sound of intruders. He turned on the Tiffany lamp in the living room. Daudov’s body was gone. There was no sign of a struggle except for the dent in the hardwood floor. No blood anywhere. He walked into the kitchen. The knives were back in the cutting board on the counter and in the drawers, as were the big scissors and the carving set.

  He walked back into the living room and poured himself a generous measure of the Louis Royer Force 53 VSOP cognac. He noted Daudov’s Taurus 740 pistol was no longer on the bookshelf. He sat down on the couch, took a swallow of the cognac, then lifted the Peacemaker Colt out of its redwood box on the coffee table. He turned it over in his hands. The etching along one side of the barrel was reflected in the Tiffany light.

  Be not afraid of any man, no matter what his size; when danger threatens, call on me, and I will equalize.

  He dragged over the yellow notepad and thought about what the ad should say. Something simple. People who were frightened, who had nowhere to turn, didn’t want to read a disclaimer. If they wanted that, they could call the cops.

  Well, Ms. Armstrong, there’s nothing we can do. If this young man rapes you, let us know.

  Your employer is not compelling you into prostitution, Ms. Rossovkaya. If you choose to go upstairs with a dance partner, it’s consensual.

  I’m sorry, Mr. Rabinovich, but do you have any proof that these young men are extorting money from you?

  I’m sorry, Mrs. Forrester, you can file a domestic complaint, but we have no evidence your husband is dangerous.

  McCall wrote on the page of yellow notepaper:

  Got a problem?

  Odds against you?

  Call the Equalizer.

  He put his cell phone number after it. He opened up his laptop and got onto the Internet. He put the ad onto Craigslist and into the classified section of the New York Times.

  Then he put on a CD of the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, listened to Lennon and McCartney sing “With a Little Help from My Friends,” and drank the Louis Royer Force 53 cognac down.

  * * *

  It was early afternoon of the next day when McCall walked into the lobby of the Liberty Belle Hotel. This time it was bustling. McCall had never been there during the day. Maybe the old girl was starting to get the overflow from the Plaza again. There were two very attractive young women behind the reception counter, both in gray slacks and blue blazers with silver rectangular badges that said their names below the words LIBERTY BELLE HOTEL. One of them, Chloe, McCall remembered from the night of the shootings. Sam Kinney was also behind the counter, handing a printout to a couple who looked like they’d just come off the tennis courts at the U.S. Open. Although, age wise, they’d have been watching McEnroe and Connors. Sam’s right eye had a patch over it. Otherwise he didn’t look too bad for the ordeal he’d been through. He shuffled over to the cubblyholes, grabbed some mail, and handed it to a gorgeous young woman who passed by the reception counter in a running outfit on her way to the street. The cubbyholes also looked the same. McCall knew some of them had to have been replaced. Also the reception counter had been patched up. Bullet holes made guests a little queasy. He glanced at the Indian carpet as he crossed the lobby. All of the blood had been steam-cleaned out of it. All evidence of the gunfight had been removed. There was a faint smell of fresh paint.

  McCall reached the counter as Sam turned back to welcome a new guest, a woman in her fifties, well-groomed and a little impatient.

  “Take this for me, will you, Chloe?” Sam asked.

  Chloe moved over to take Sam’s place. “Sure, Sam. Glad to see you back. You look wonderful.”

  She smiled at the woman and looked up her reservation while Sam motioned to McCall to go to the end of the counter.

  “They love me,” Sam said. “What do you want, McCall?”

  “Must be your sunny personality,” McCall said. “You are looking pretty good for an old spook who got shot up.”

  “I got moved to a private hospital. Control took care of everything. I guess he didn’t forget about me.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Any more dead-eyed Chechens going to come into my lobby looking for you?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “You’ll piss somebody off soon. I saw your ad on the Internet last night. ‘The Equalizer.’ I recognized the phone number.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I like it.”

  The edge had gone from Sam’s voice. McCall knew it had only been there for show—for old time’s sake.

  “You got a new girlfriend you need to stash away somewhere discreet?”

  “The only girl worth stashing somewhere is in Prague.”

  “She get out okay? You know, your hooker?”

  “Her name is Margaret. Kostmayer put her on a Greyhound bus back home.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Norman Rockwell Mid-America.”

  “You don’t make social calls, McCall. Why are you here?”

  “My apartment has been compromised. I need to move out.”

  “I’ve got a nice suite on the seventeenth floor. Great view of the city. No charge.”

  “I’ll pay for the suite, Sam.”

  “All right. Fifty bucks a night and that doesn’t include room service.”

  McCall smiled. “Fair enough.”

  Sam leaned in a little closer, his voice dropping to a hoarse whisper.

  “That intel I gave you in the hospital room? From that lowlife Chechen killer. Did it come to anything?”

  “I’d say it saved the life of the secretary of state. Maybe even the President of the United States.”

  Sam whistled. “So maybe we make a good team?”

  “I get by with a little help from my friends.”

  “I’ve got a cousin with a moving business in Queens. Him and his two sons. Give me your address and the keys to your building and your apartment. What number is it?”

  “Three.”

  McCall took the keys off a ring and handed them to Sam. He wrote the address down on the back of one of Sam’s Liberty Belle Hotel cards.

  “Tell them to be careful with the sculpture. It’s Kostmayer’s favorite.”

  Sam put the card into his breast pocket and looked behind McCa
ll.

  “It’ll happen today. You already got your first visitor.”

  McCall turned from the reception counter.

  Control stood in the lobby. He was impeccably dressed, as always, wearing his camel-hair overcoat. McCall could swear he could smell his pungent lime cologne from the reception counter. Control nodded at him. McCall turned back to Sam.

  “No one has to know I’m coming to live with you.”

  “You think I’d tell anyone? There goes the neighborhood.” Sam leaned in again. “Don’t let him talk you into coming back. Remember your ad.”

  McCall moved over to Control and the two of them walked out of the lobby.

  There was a black Lincoln town car waiting outside the Liberty Belle Hotel with the engine running. A young Company agent McCall had never seen before stood at the vehicle, holding the back door open.

  “Get in,” Control said to McCall. “There’s something I want to show you.”

  McCall slid into the back of the Lincoln. Control sat in beside him and the agent eased the town car into the traffic. Control didn’t say another word as they drove north out of New York, through Yonkers and White Plains. McCall thought about how Control knew where to find him. He probably had agents staking out Bentleys, Dolls nightclub, and the Liberty Belle Hotel. It didn’t matter. McCall was back on the grid now, whether he liked it or not.

  They drove about thirty miles through some beautiful countryside and turned onto Albany Post Road. McCall saw a church up on the right. They passed a sign that said OLD DUTCH CHURCH OF SLEEPY HOLLOW—1685—GO IN PEACE—SERVE THE LORD. They pulled onto the church grounds. McCall and Control got out of the car. The village of Sleepy Hollow was a few miles away, immortalized in Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” McCall looked up at the beautiful old church. It had two-foot-thick fieldstone brick walls, a Flemish-style gambrel roof, the lower segments flaring outward like a bell. There was an octagonal wooden open belfry. Control looked up at it.

  “The belfry contains the original bell. On it is an engraved verse: ‘Si Deus Nobis, Quis Contras Pas.’” McCall looked at him. “‘If God be for us, who can be against us?’”

  “It’s a beautiful church,” McCall said. “Long drive to appreciate it.”

  “It’s not the church we’ve come to see.”