Assume Nothing

by Gar Anthony Haywood

  By now, however, Cross probably knew that Clarke and Sinnott were dead and was already inclined to run, so Reddick had little to lose by giving him a call. He just couldn’t imagine what he could say to the little prick over the phone to coerce him into a meeting.

  Reddick was tired of the hunt and Cross had to be even more so. Maybe he’d agree to a meet just for the chance to put an end to it, once and for all, if Reddick could convince him the odds of his survival would all be in his favor.

  ‘Bring all the friends you want, I don’t give a shit. Just show up.’ Would Cross take that kind of bait?

  Reddick doubted it. And he didn’t want to give him that much of an advantage, in any case. What he wanted was him and Cross in a room, alone, no friends and no witnesses. Five minutes, that’s all he needed. But how to get the sonofabitch in that room? What besides the promise of closure did Reddick have to offer Cross as a lure?

  Iris. He’d forgotten all about Iris.

  Unless she’d found a way to free herself, she should still be back in the bedroom of his home where he’d left her, bound and gagged. Threatening to kill her for Cross’s benefit would be pointless, he knew, because Cross wouldn’t take such a threat from him seriously and wouldn’t give a shit if he did. Reddick had already put a gun to the girl’s head once in Cross’s presence and seen what he would do about it, which was nothing. But if Iris called Cross instead of Reddick, under some false pretense, maybe she could do what Reddick couldn’t, talk Cross into a rendezvous of some kind where Reddick would be waiting for him in her stead.

  Of course, Iris would want no part of such a plan. She’d know she was leading Cross to his death and would refuse to make the call. But Reddick would have to convince her to do it regardless. Her status as an innocent bystander in this war between him and Cross notwithstanding, if he had to hurt her, he would. He would do whatever was necessary. He was too desperate now to keep making allowances for decency and fair play, and his goal of ensuring Dana and Jake’s long-term safety, by killing the last man who could threaten it, was too close at hand.

  He would try to scare Iris into calling Cross first. If that didn’t work, he would find the will somewhere to win her cooperation by other means.

  The stub that had once been the pinky finger on Cross’s left hand hurt like a sonofabitch. Ruben had wrapped a tourniquet around it, using a strip of cloth torn from Cross’s shirt sleeve, so it wasn’t bleeding much anymore, but the pain was still damn near unbearable.

  And yet the finger was the least of Cross’s problems. They all knew now that Clarke and Sinnott were indeed dead. They knew it because, right after Cross had completed the twisted self-surgery Ruben had forced upon him, Ruben’s driver had driven them out to Clarke’s place and, following his employer’s instructions, broken into the house to find the bodies. He’d just sauntered around back, acting as cool and entitled to be there as a man from the gas company, and forced his way into the home, in broad fucking daylight, Cross had no idea how. When the big man had reappeared a few minutes later, strolling back to the car the same way he’d left it, Cross could tell by the look on his face that what he’d seen inside the house wasn’t good. No translation of his all-Espanol report to Ruben had been necessary.

  ‘Well? I was right, wasn’t I?’ he asked. ‘They’re dead, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ruben said. ‘They’re dead.’ His rage was beyond his power to completely conceal, but he was holding it in check well, demonstrating more self-control than Cross would have thought the man possessed. ‘But it is strange.’

  ‘What’s strange?’

  ‘Poeto says it doesn’t look like this man Reddick was the one who killed them. He says it looks like Ben killed the other man and then died of other causes. A drug overdose, perhaps.’

  ‘What? That’s crazy!’ Cross cried.

  ‘Your friend Will was shot, yes, but with Ben’s gun, and he is the only one with any visible wounds. Poeto says Ben’s body is sitting in a chair and that there is a liquor bottle and pills nearby. He says there is no sign that anyone else was ever there.’

  Cross’s head began to reel. Ruben was looking at him with open distrust now. ‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘I don’t care what it looks like to fucking “Poeto.” Reddick killed them both, just like he killed Andy. He’s an ex-cop, he knows how to fix things so they appear to be something else.’

  ‘An ex-cop? Now this Joe Reddick of yours is an ex-policeman?’

  It was a detail Cross had previously neglected to mention, and not accidentally.

  ‘Yeah. What, didn’t I tell you that?’

  Ruben didn’t answer him right away, searching his face for the deceit he was certain had to be there. ‘I think I’ve heard enough about this man, Perry. I want to meet him, face-to-face. You will take us to him. Now.’

  Cross shook his head, swallowing air as if it were a horse pill. ‘I can’t. I don’t know where he lives. But I can find out. All I need—’

  Ruben lunged across the seat to slap him across the face with the back of his right hand, hard enough that Cross’s butchered pinky finger was momentarily forgotten. ‘Enough of this bullshit! I am out of patience with you! You will tell me where I can find this imaginary friend of yours or I will cut your lying tongue out of your mouth and make you fucking eat it!’

  Cross was too terrified, and now in too much pain, to do much more than babble. ‘I don’t . . .’

  Of his three partners, he was the only one who had never found a use for Reddick’s address; Andy had taken it from Reddick himself after their accident, Ben had gotten it from Andy, and Will had almost certainly collected this piece of data when he’d researched Reddick online. Given time, Cross could get it, too, but he had no more time. The fury on Ruben’s face said his time had all run out.

  Ruben closed the space between them in one pounce, locked Cross’s wounded hand in a vise-like grip and said, ‘Last chance, pendejo. Where is this Joe Reddick?’

  His bloody stump of a finger clamped tight within Ruben’s fist, pain searing a hole in his brain, Cross came to the very edge of blacking out. He was doomed. But then:

  ‘Wait. Wait!’

  He had remembered the call he’d placed to Iris’s brother-in-law, Frank Blake, the night before, and the favor he’d asked of him.

  Ruben was still leaning in to breathe into his face, eyes as bright as white flame, but he eased his grip on Cross’s hand almost imperceptibly. ‘Yes?’

  ‘One call. There’s a man who might know,’ Cross said, gasping for air. ‘Please. Let me make just one call.’

  Ruben didn’t move, or speak. He looked into Cross’s eyes as if he were trying to light his very soul on fire. The knife had reappeared in his right hand, a silver promise of death hovering only inches from Cross’s throat.

  ‘OK.’ Ruben released Cross’s left hand, slid back across the car’s rear seat to give him room. ‘One call. No more. Go.’

  Cross found his cell phone and dialed Blake’s number. He was without faith and had never said a prayer in his life, but that didn’t stop him now from begging Jesus Christ himself to intervene on his behalf and put Blake on the other end of the line.

  Both Ruben and his driver watched intently as Cross listened to the phone ring in his ear, sounding as if it might never stop.

  ‘Please,’ Cross said out loud.

  He counted seven rings, then eight.

  ‘Hello?’

  It was Blake. Cross closed his eyes and exhaled with relief. ‘Frank, it’s Perry. I’m calling to see if you got that info I asked for last night. On Joe Reddick?’

  ‘Oh. Hey, Perry. Yeah, I’ve got it,’ Blake said, his voice devoid of all enthusiasm. ‘But here’s the thing . . .’

  ‘Blake, I’m kind of in a hurry here. I just need you to give me the guy’s address right now and email me anything else you might have, ASAP.’

  ‘I’d like to do that, Perry, but I don’t know if I should. Something about this just doesn’t seem kosher to me. I
’ve been trying to reach Iris to ask her about it, but—’

  ‘Iris? Iris has nothing to do with this, what the hell are you trying to call her for?’ Cross wanted desperately to scream into the phone – this mindless jackass was going to get him fucking killed! – but he knew he didn’t dare. If Blake hung up on him before giving up Reddick’s address, Ruben might not give Cross another chance to call the asshole back.

  ‘I just want to be sure she’s OK with my doing this for you, that’s all,’ Blake said. ‘No offense, man, but I get the feeling there’s more going on here than you’re telling me.’

  ‘You’re right. There is. And as soon as I get a chance to breathe, I’ll tell you all about it. But right now, Frank, all I can tell you is, I need you to give me the man’s address and email me whatever else you’ve got on him, this second, or so help me God, brother, me and Iris both are gonna be in a world of hurt. A world of fucking hurt.’

  ‘Then this does involve Iris. She’s in some kind of trouble?’

  ‘Frank, for Chrissake! I’m begging you!’

  Cross began to weep, Ruben and the big man behind the Yukon’s wheel staring at him, as Iris’s brother-in-law took forever to make up his mind.

  ‘OK. Fuck it,’ Blake said at last. ‘I’ll do it. But if I find out later you’ve been punking me, man, I’m not gonna be happy.’

  ‘I know that name. “Joe Reddick.” Why the hell do I know that name?’

  Lerner and Winn were riding a crowded elevator down from Cross’s office and Lerner was talking as if they were the only two people in the car. He kept saying the same thing, more or less, over and over again, and it was starting to get on his partner’s nerves.

  Winn didn’t respond to him, however, until the car emptied out into the lobby and they were standing at some remove from anyone else, waiting for another elevator to take them down to the building’s parking lot. ‘He couldn’t be somebody you busted once? Or a person of interest in a case you caught?’

  Lerner shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. At least, I don’t remember him as a bad guy. It’s something else.’

  ‘What else is there? If you don’t know him from the Job, and you didn’t meet him through Sandy . . .’

  Sandy was Lerner’s wife. He shook his head again, totally baffled. ‘I dunno.’

  ‘Tell you what. Why don’t we wait ’til we get to the car and see what the computer turns up. Maybe you’ll figure it out then.’

  ‘You think he’s in the system?’

  ‘If he isn’t, it sure sounds like he ought to be. He tells the girl upstairs he wants to see Cross about a burglary at the home of one of his partners over the weekend, only minutes after she takes a call from the police regarding a similar break-in at Cross’s place this morning. What, you think that’s just a coincidence?’

  ‘No. I don’t,’ Lerner conceded. ‘But—’

  ‘First thing we’re gonna do when we get to the car is check to see if there are any open warrants on Mr Reddick. Then we’re gonna look for an open ticket on either of the break-ins the girl described.’

  ‘And if we find one?’

  ‘If we find one, we’re gonna run Reddick down and ask him a few more questions. Starting with why he lied to us about his interest in Cross and ending with how he knew there’d been a burglary at the home of this guy – “Baumhower,” was it? – if he wasn’t the one who committed it.’

  Lerner nodded. ‘OK. I like it. Assuming . . .’

  ‘Assuming any of this turns out to have something to do with Gillis Rainey and the case we’re supposed to be working.’

  ‘Yeah. Asuming that,’ Lerner said, just as a parking lot elevator opened its doors for them and Winn stepped inside.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Reddick knew he’d walked into a trap the moment he passed through the door. Nobody put his lights out this time, as Ben Clarke had at Dana’s three days earlier, but a similar, unpleasant surprise was waiting for him, nonetheless.

  The first sign of trouble was Iris, sitting in a chair in his living room, still bound and gagged exactly as he’d left her. Other signs quickly followed: two men standing on either side of Iris, one of them Perry Cross, the other a stranger – dark-skinned and wild-eyed, smiling like Reddick was an answer to a prayer. And then there was a third man, Hispanic like Cross’s friend but larger, a suited hulk stepping in from Reddick’s right to jam a gun to the side of his head the second he entered the house.

  Reddick’s right hand instinctively flinched, his own weapon calling it to the waistband of his pants, but he stopped it cold even before the young guy with the grin said, ‘Oh, no, no, no. Please, don’t do that. We need to talk first.’

  Ruben Lizama, Reddick thought. This had to be Ruben Lizama.

  The big guy in the suit found Reddick’s .40, took it away from him without a word, then practically threw him to the center of the room.

  The smaller Hispanic turned to Cross. ‘This is him? Joe Reddick?’

  Cross nodded, flashing Reddick a little smile of his own. In the chair beside him, Iris whined into the gag over her mouth and squirmed, eyes begging Reddick’s forgiveness.

  ‘And I guess you must be the piece of shit known as Ruben Lizama,’ Reddick said.

  The grin on Cross’s face fell away as the big man with the gun used it to club Reddick on the back of the head, dropping him to his knees.

  ‘You know about me?’ Still feigning good cheer, Ruben turned to Cross. ‘How does he know about me?’

  ‘I don’t know. I swear,’ Cross said. ‘Unless . . .’ He cast a glance in the direction of his former fiancée.

  ‘Don’t blame the lady, dickhead,’ Reddick said through clenched teeth. ‘If she’d wanted to sell you out, you think I would have had to leave her here all hogtied like that? She was trying to help your sorry ass.’

  Ruben stepped forward to hover over him, no longer finding it necessary to smile. ‘Perry says you are a dangerous man. That you are responsible for the deaths of three of our friends. Ben Clarke, Andy Baumhower and . . .’ He turned back to Cross, seeking assistance.

  ‘Will Sinnott,’ Cross said.

  ‘Yes. Will Sinnott. Is this true?’

  Reddick could hear the words but he wasn’t listening. His mind was on Dana and Jake, and how all the destruction he’d leveled against the earth over the last four days to protect them was about to prove thoroughly meaningless.

  Off a raised eyebrow from Ruben, the giant with the gun kicked Reddick in the ribs from behind, taking the wind right out of him. He toppled forward at Ruben’s feet, hands barely bracing his fall before his face hit the floor. Iris was trying to scream now.

  ‘You will answer my questions, please,’ Ruben said.

  His associate lifted Reddick back up by his hair, stuck his gun in Reddick’s right ear. Nothing about surrender appealed to Reddick, but any move he might make to save himself now would be suicide. Stringing this asshole Lizama along, biding his time until a greater opening for taking the offensive presented itself, seemed his only immediate option for survival, and he owed it to Dana and Jake to swallow his pride and take it.

  ‘Yeah, I wasted the fuckers,’ he said. ‘What else do you wanna know?’

  ‘There. Did I tell you?’ Cross said. ‘Kill the sonofabitch already!’

  He was a bundle of nerves, rocking on the balls of his feet as if the floor beneath them were white hot. Reddick noticed for the first time the blood-soaked bandage on his left hand.

  ‘Man’s in a hurry to shut me up,’ Reddick said to Ruben. ‘I were you, I’d wonder why.’

  ‘Shut your fucking mouth!’ To Ruben, Cross said, ‘What is with all this talking? He’s admitted he killed Ben and the others. What more do you need to know?’

  ‘Let me see if I can guess what’s going on here,’ Reddick said, still addressing Ruben. ‘He told you I’ve got the money he owes you, or that I’m the reason he doesn’t. That right?’

  ‘I said—’ Cross took a step toward him, then froze
when Ruben turned his head, let his eyes alone issue a warning to back off.

  To Reddick, Ruben said, ‘Are you saying he’s lying to me?’

  ‘I’m saying he’s full of shit. I’ve got nothing to do with your money and never did. He and his friends didn’t have it to give you before any of us ever met.’

  Unable to help himself, Cross lunged at him, lifting a leg to put a foot in his teeth. But Reddick, fully expecting the move, raised both arms to block the kick, then threw a short right hand into the younger man’s groin, able to put enough behind the blow, even on his knees, to drop him like a little girl.

  As Cross rolled around on the floor, moaning, hands pinned between his legs, Ruben gazed down upon him and said, ‘You will tell me no more lies, Perry. Is it true, what he says? That he is not the reason you cannot pay me what I am owed?’

  Cross didn’t respond fast enough to suit him. Ruben kicked him in the buttocks, hard enough to bruise bone, screaming, ‘Answer me!’

  ‘Yes! Yes! We had a run of bad luck and suffered some . . . some unexpected losses.’ Cross sat up, glowered at Reddick. ‘But we could have raised your money anyway if not for him! We would have had it days ago if he hadn’t fucked things up!’

  Reddick finally snapped, all his reasons for keeping still forgotten. He didn’t give a shit what Ruben Lizama thought about him, or what Lizama held him responsible for, but hearing Cross portray him as the villain in this nightmare, rather than the victim of it, was too great an insult to bear. It had all begun with Cross, not Ben Clarke or Andy Baumhower, and the little prick and his friends had probably cost Reddick what little hope he’d ever had of living a normal life with the second family he’d built from the ashes of his first one. Hell if Reddick was going to listen to him pass the fucking buck a second longer.

  Paying no heed to the gun at his head, he leapt across the floor on his hands and knees and took Cross by the throat. Cross went white, eyes bulging out of his head, mouth agape as his windpipe clamped shut beneath Reddick’s iron grip. Reddick kept waiting for the big man behind him to put a bullet in his back, but the gunshot he was expecting never came. What came instead was a blow to the back of his head that filled his eyes with stars and loosened his hold on Cross’s throat before the job of killing him was done.