by Bill Moody
“Eddie—”
“You don’t think I came alone, do you?” Primble asked.
“I don’t really care if you came alone or not, Eddie,” Sangster said. “You’re leaving, either way.”
“There are two guns trained on you right now. If I nod, you’re dead, and your chess buddy, too.”
It got quiet, and suddenly they all heard the sound of the hammer being cocked on a gun.
“I thought you said you didn’t own a gun,” Primble said.
“He don’t,” Ken Burke said. “I do.”
Burke brought his right hand into sight. He was holding a big .45 Peacemaker, the kind they used to carry in the old west.
“You so much as twitch, let alone nod, and it’ll be the last thing you ever do,” Burke told Primble.
“Easy, old timer,” Primble said. “That thing’s pretty old. It might explode in your hand.”
“I guess you don’t really know much about guns, do ya, Mister?” Burke asked. “That probably comes from havin’ other people do your killin’ for ya. This here’s a collector’s item, and I keep it in pristine shape. It’s the pride of my collection, and believe me when I tell you it’s in fine workin’ order.”
That was the most Sangster thought he’d heard the older man say at one time in the almost three years he’d known him.
Primble was sweating even more, but it wasn’t from the heat.
“Is he serious?” he asked.
“Dead serious,” Sangster said. “Show him, Burke.”
With his left hand Burke took his wallet from his pocket and flipped it open to show Primble his badge.
“You’re a cop?”
“Sheriff,” Burke said. “Retired, but I keep my hand in.”
“Sangster,” Primble said, “I just wanted to talk.”
“Then you should have left the threats at home,” Sangster said. “Come on.” He stood up, as did Burke.
“Where we going?” Primble asked.
“You signal your boys to put up their guns,” Sangster said. “We’re going to walk you to the ferry, so nobody decides to take a shot at me.”
“Look, I—”
“We’re done talking, Eddie.”
“I need you, Sangster!”
“You heard the man,” Burke said. “Now give whatever signal you arranged so your men know to put up their guns.”
Primble frowned, and for a moment looked like a man about to cry. Finally, he turned his body partially and waved his hand in disgust.
“They’re leaving,” he said.
“Good,” Sangster said, “they’ll be on the same ferry you’re on. Let’s go.”
“I don’t know why—” Burke prodded Primble in the back with the barrel of the Peacemaker and the man almost jumped out of his skin. They made the walk to the Algiers ferry in silence.
Sangster watched the ferry start across the lake back to New Orleans.
“You sure his men were on there, too?” Burke asked.
“I’m sure,” Sangster said.
Sangster looked at the Peacemaker is his friend’s hand.
“I’m glad you brought that over here today to show me.”
“Yeah,” Burke said, with a grin. He took it off cock and lowered it to his side.
“Would it really have fired?”
“To tell you the truth,” Burke said, “I don’t know.” He waited a beat, then added, “Maybe if it’d been loaded.
TWO
On the ferry, Silk Guiliano and Jimmy O’Malley walked over to where Eddie Primble was sitting.
“What the hell happened?” Silk asked.
“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “He run us off?”
“He did,” Primble said. “He’s still as good as ever. Wants me to believe he hasn’t pulled the trigger—hell, even held a gun—in three years, but...” Primble shook his head in admiration. “He had that old man hold the gun. It was...brilliant.”
Silk looked at Jimmy.
“He ran us off, and Eddie’s impressed.”
“I ain’t so impressed,” Jimmy replied. He looked at Primble. “Is the bet still on?”
“It’s still on,” Primble said. “I fingered him for you, didn’t I? You both get a good look at him?”
“I did,” Silk said. He was in his early thirties, dressed completely in black. He had christened himself “Silk” years ago, liking the name and all its connotations. “Smooth as silk,” that’s what he told women, and he also considered himself to be smooth as silk with a gun.
O’Malley, on the other hand, was just the opposite. Late twenties, he was rough, crude, but effective when it came to killing.
One of these men wanted to take the place of Sangster in Eddie Primble’s operation, but Primble wouldn’t pick one until he knew that Sangster was dead and not coming back. So a wager had been put in place, between Silk and Jimmy. Whichever man managed to kill Sangster would get his spot. The other man would be relegated to second banana, and neither man wanted that.
“So,” Primble said, “you both know him on sight, the rest is up to you.”
Silk and Jimmy exchanged a look, then Silk asked, “Are you sure you didn’t talk him into coming back?”
“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “Maybe you told him about us?”
“He says he’s done with it,” Primble said. “If he’s truly finished, I can’t have him running around out here alive, not with what he knows. No, he didn’t agree to come back. He’s your target, boys, and there’s a lot at stake.”
“He didn’t look so tough,” O’Malley said.
“Don’t underestimate him,” Primble said. “That’s the only advice I’m going to give you both.”
“I’m not going to underestimate him,” Silk said. “What’s the point of killing him if he’s not the best?”
“Oh, he was the best all right,” Primble said. “The best I ever saw. Probably still is.”
“We’ll see about that,” Silk said, looking back at Algiers.
For want of something else to say, Jimmy O’Malley said, “Yeah.”
THREE
It had taken Sangster a year to get to know Ken Burke well enough to tell him the truth. As a retired lawman, Burke didn’t approve of the way Sangster had made his living, but as a man who had done his own share of killing—all in the line of duty, of course—he understood a man finding redemption. As a Christian, he forgave Sangster, and their friendship grew stronger after that.
They didn’t finish their chess game after walking Primble to the ferry. Sangster told the old man he had some thinking to do.
“About leavin’?”
“Maybe.”
“That’d be a shame.”
“I know,” Sangster said. He loved the house in Algiers. He also loved the French Quarter and everything it had to offer, from its great bookstores to its countless musical venues, its food and its women. Especially its women.
“Then don’t let that feller ruin it.”
“There’s only one way I could be sure he won’t, Burke.”
“By killin’ him?”
Sangster nodded.
“And I’m not going to do that.”
“Got to be another way, then.”
“That’s what I’m going to think about.”
“Well, gimme a shout if you need me,” Burke said. “I got guns that I know will shoot.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks, Ken.”
After his neighbor left, Sangster walked to one of the front windows and stared out. He had known someone would find him sooner or later, but he’d hoped it wouldn’t be his old boss, Primble. Now he was either going to have to deal with the man, take care of him or move on and make a new life somewhere else. The only problem with the third one was he knew Primble wouldn’t stop looking. He had too much invested in Sangster just to let him go, and if he could find him—or have him found—once, he could do it again.
The problem with the second option was that he didn’t kill anymore.
So the only opt
ion left to him was number one, deal with him.
From his vantage point, he could see his mailbox, one of those big metal ones mounted on a pole and fitted with a red flag. When the flag was up, something was in the box. The flag had not been up in the three years he'd been living there, because nobody knew where he was to send him mail. He didn’t even get junk mail because he’d instructed the post office never to deliver it.
Then why was the flag up now?
He went out the front door and down the walk to the mailbox. He saw that the door was slightly ajar. He hadn’t thought about things like booby traps and trip wires for over two years.
That first year he’d kept expecting to find death around every corner, but eventually he was able to relax and start living a normal life—not “again,” because he couldn’t remember when he’d actually lived a normal life. Certainly not growing up. How normal could it have been to constantly be trying to avoid parents in his own house? And certainly not since he killed his first man at fifteen. So surely it had only been the past two years that he could call his life normal, by conventional standards.
Now, as he stared at the mailbox, he had to summon back some of those old instincts. He examined the pole and the box on the outside, then used his fingers to search for wires of any kind. Finally, after pressing his ear to the box and listening intently, he eased the door open and looked inside. There was one single brown letter sized envelope inside. He studied the interior of the box for several seconds before reaching in to remove it. Now that he was holding it he had to be concerned that it might be a letter bomb. How could he have existed all those years having to deal with this kind of fear every moment?
He ran his finger over the envelope carefully before slipping his thumb under the flap and unsealing it. It came open rather easily, indicating it hadn’t been sealed very long ago. Inside was a single piece of white paper with two handwritten lines on it:
I’m at the Lafitte House
if you want to talk.
It was signed: E.P.
He folded the note and put it back in the envelope. As he turned to go back to the house, he swiped at the red flag to put it back down. As it came down it made a connection with a wire and a puff of smoke leaped into the air. Sangster took one step away from the box and watched the smoke rise and dissipate. Primble’s sense of humor. He just wanted to show Sangster that he could be dead at that moment.
Instead of going back to his house he walked across to Burke’s.
FOUR
“What are you going to do?” Burke asked.
“I’ll have to handle it, somehow,” Sangster said.
“You think he’s here to kill you?”
“I think he was here to get me back,” Sangster said. “Failing that, he’ll have me killed.”
“Not kill you himself?”
“No,” Sangster said, “Primble doesn’t kill. He has others do that for him.”
“Like you?”
“Yes,” Sangster said, “like me...at one time.”
They were seated in Burke’s kitchen, each with a Blackened Voodoo beer bottle in front of them. It was early, but they both thought the occasion called for it.
“He said he had guns with him,” Burke said.
“I believe him.”
“How many do you suppose?”
“At least two.”
“And you plan on takin’ them out?”
“Not if I can help it.”
Burke leaned back and regarded his friend across the table.
“You said you don’t kill for a livin’ anymore.”
“That’s right.”
“How about to survive?” Burke asked. “Could you kill then?”
Sangster stared at his beer bottle.
“I don’t know, Burke,” he said. “Are you a religious man?”
“No,” Burke said, “not in any way you’d understand.”
“Do you believe men have souls?” Sangster asked. “Souls that tell them what’s right and what’s wrong? Souls that make them feel compassion?”
“You’re confusing a soul with a conscience, son,” Burke said. “I know you told me you woke up three years ago and discovered you had both, but maybe it was just one.”
“Which one?”
“That’s for you to figure out. If you decide it’s a soul, then you might not want to put any black marks on it. But if you decide it’s a conscience—well, you can kill and still have a conscience.”
“Am I kidding myself, Burke?” Sangster asked. “A hitman is all I’ve ever been. Can I be a hitman who won’t kill?”
“A hitman is what you used to be, son,” Burke said. “Just like a cop is what I used to be.”
“You’re still a cop, you old coot,” Sangster said. “You’ve told me that a hundred times.”
“Have I?” Burke asked. “Then who is the one kiddin’ themselves?”
FIVE
Bourbon Street at midnight was a world unto itself.
The club doors were wide open, scantily-clad girls stood in windows and doorways, enticing men to come inside. One girl was riding on a swing, in and out of the window of a gentlemen’s club. There were frozen Margarita bars on almost every corner, and almost every storefront—T-shirt shop, club, restaurant—and alcove had an ATM machine.
Sangster loved Bourbon Street, but tonight he could hear the music and voices floating on the air the two blocks to Chartres Street, where he was entering a small club just off of Jackson Square. He wore a pair of black cotton trousers, black T-shirt and a charcoal grey sport coat.
Sangster only came to the French Quarter a few times each month, sometimes during the day to prowl the used bookstores, other times late at night like this to hear the music. He had discovered the small Club Celestine—a distinctly Creole name—only a few months earlier, and this was his third time there.
Sangster was not a seafood lover, so he usually ordered either jambalaya or etouffe, both with chicken. Crawfish was something he had never even considered tasting and had never understood people’s obsession with shrimp or crab legs.
He placed his order for jambalaya this time and an ice cold bottle of Abita, and settled back to enjoy the music which, tonight, was a Zydeco band.
“You came back,” a woman’s voice said.
He turned his head and looked up at her. She was tall, dark-haired and slender, probably thirty-three or thirty-four. Her green dress left her shoulders bare and the hem hit just above her knees. Certainly not risqué, but there was enough bare skin to be interesting. She had a long upper lip that kept her from being beautiful, but he doubted she ever got any complaints. The overall effect was extremely attractive.
She had spoken to him the last time he was there and, rather than be rude, he had bought her a drink. But he’d left the club alone that night, with the vague feeling she’d been disappointed. It wasn’t that he didn’t find her appealing—he certainly did—but years of killing people had left him ill-equipped to deal with the living, especially women. He could seduce a woman if his intent was to kill her or to use her to get to someone else, but in the real world he was rather inept at the dance that men and women took part in.
“I was sitting over there alone when I saw you come in,” she said. “May I join you?”
“I, uh, already ordered,” he said.
“So have I,” she said, “but they can bring my plate over here. May I?”
He didn’t know how to refuse, so he finally just said, “Sure.”
“I’ll get my drink.”
As she hurried back to her table to pick up what looked like a martini, he thought back to how his day had started with Primble appearing on his doorstep. Having turned his ex-employer away he probably should have remained on Algiers for the evening, but he had already planned this trip into the Quarter and didn’t want to let the man be the cause of his changing his plans. Besides, he didn’t think Primble’s men would come after him—at least not so soon. His former “handler” would at least wan
t to wait a few days to see if Sangster would call him. (Primble called himself a “Handler.” Sangster had always thought of him as more of a “Manager” or “Agent.”)
The woman returned with her drink and sat down. Sangster stared across the table at her, trying to dredge up her name, which he was sure she had told him last time.
“You don’t remember my name do you?” she asked.
Sangster had an excellent memory. It had served him well for years, freeing him from having to write anything down, like names, addresses or instructions.
“Of course I do.”
“Well,” she said, “I won’t make a liar out of you by asking you to tell me what it is. Your name, on the other hand—well, you never told me your name last time, did you?”
“No, I didn’t.”
She raised her eyebrows, as if to say, “What about this time?”
“Stark,” he told her, because he had never killed anyone while using that name and it was on the driver’s license in his pocket. “Richard Stark.”
“Stark?”
“Is there something wrong with that name?”
“No, no,” she said, “it’s a good name, strong, masculine, but not too testosterone fueled. I like it.”
“I’m glad.”
When the waiter came over, the woman said, “Could you bring my order over here, please? The gentleman was nice enough to ask me to join him.”
“Yes, Miss.”
When he walked away she looked up at the small stage, where the group was beginning to assemble.
“Do you like Zydeco?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, “quite a bit.”
“So do I.”
“Quite a coincidence that we’re here again on the same night.”
She sipped her drink and eyed him over the rim of the glass. “It’s not really such a coincidence.”
“No?” He wondered if she was going to tell him something he didn’t want to know.
She shook her head. “Uh-uh. I come here almost every night.”
“I see.”