by Michael Todd
Harry had little in the way of military training and only five years on the local police force before he’d been pushed out for early retirement for being too much trouble for his bosses. What he did have, though, was a solid dose of street smarts. He knew when a deal was about to go sour, and he knew when to walk away. That was how he’d survived three years in Vice and lived to tell the tale.
And he’d done it without turning dirty, either. Or, at least, not as dirty as others. The pricks who wanted him out had done so because they weren’t as clean as he was. When some low-level officer made them look bad, they couldn’t allow that to stand. Fuck those guys! Right in the down-unders. The thought was vaguely satisfying even if he couldn’t see it fulfilled anytime soon.
Five grand was what they’d paid him up front. It wasn’t the kind of money a man could live on, but it was enough to get him out of the city and set up elsewhere, where he could access the retirement fund that waited for him in San Mateo. He’d been clean when it came to things like running protection scams or appropriating drugs for personal distribution—the big stuff that inevitably hurt others.
But that didn’t mean that he was above dipping into the stashes of the dealers he’d busted. It was money that would, at best, sit in evidence for half a century before it was burned. Besides that, other cops would probably take it if he hadn’t. He had merely got his nose wet—looked out for himself in case someone tried to fuck him over.
And, lo and behold, he’d been fucked and fucked bad. He was stuck in the state while he waited for the depositions on the case that he’d worked on to finish so that he could give his testimony and leave. If the truth be told, the assholes he would testify against would probably cut fifteen different deals and walk away without having served a day in jail. Given that, he needed to be out of the state by the time they focused on the little matter of vengeance. Hell, out of the country would be even better.
Those Colombian bastards really didn’t go about vengeance halfway.
If this chunk of scratch was all he needed to set his plans in motion, he wouldn’t thumb his nose at it. The guys who expected him to sit around to testify would assume that Batista’s men had found him and left him in places where people didn’t find bodies. There were swamps in the south of the state that did that for them.
All this had led him there to a small motel just outside Charlotte where he waited for two people to step out into the sunlight so he could identify them and call the people with the money. They knew their quarry was there, they said, and merely needed to confirm which room they were in. For that, they needed someone unaffiliated to do the legwork.
That was him. Unaffiliated legwork specialist. Bolden was under no illusions as to what would happen to these people when they were found. He didn’t much care, either.
They’d given him two pictures. One resembled an employee badge photo of a young woman with dark brown hair, thick glasses, and a serious expression. From the lab coat, he identified her as a doctor or something like that. The second picture was vaguer. It wasn’t a photo, for one thing. It was an artist’s rendition of what the man looked like and obviously drawn based on someone else’s memory. There wasn’t anything notable about it at all. He merely looked like an average man with dark hair and a trim build. Bolden knew he could walk past this man on the street and wouldn’t recognize him. What it narrowed down to, he acknowledged, was that any man who left the motel with the more recognizable woman in the photo would be the target.
The sleuth had been parked outside the motel all morning. He’d snacked on the cheap delicacies he’d brought for the stakeout and now suffered when the sun started to bake his car. Even with the windows closed and the air conditioner on, there was only so much that could be done. He would be a ham by the time this was over.
“Why don’t you come out?” Bolden asked in a low hiss. “I thought these places charged by the hour.”
He leaned in closer to his window as he finished the beef jerky he’d brought with him. That might have been a bad choice because, while he’d brought drinks to wash it down with, he didn’t look forward to having to use the empty bottles. He wasn’t above it and had done it before, but a part of him wanted to put it off for as long as possible. Hopefully until after these assholes decided that they needed a breath of fresh air.
One of the doors opened, and he almost pressed his cheek into the window of his car as he tried to make out who it was. He’d brought all the standard surveillance equipment that was usually needed for jobs like these, but someone who sat in a car and peered at a motel through binoculars tended to attract all the wrong kinds of attention. The kinds he wasn’t willing to attract to himself at the moment. If, God forbid, he needed to spend the night out there, that was when he would use his binoculars.
A man stepped out of the room. From across the street, he seemed fairly ordinary in a Polo shirt, jeans, and sneakers. His short brown hair, average build, and average height provided no notable features that would make him stand out. Bolden couldn’t be sure if this was the man in the sketch, all things considered. He was also reluctant to use the camera that rested beside him on the seat—that was as obvious as the binoculars—but the specifics had been clear. They needed a photo, so he focused his camera, made sure to zoom in, and caught a couple of frames of the man’s face as he locked the motel room door and strolled toward the stairs.
If this was his man, why did he bother to lock the door? Unless the woman in question was a hostage of some sort and he held her there against her will? That scenario wasn’t half as crazy as the fifty others he’d thought up during his boring stakeout. If this was a hostage situation, it would explain the willingness to part with cash to get him on the job. It would also explain why these people had so much cash readily available too, he mused and leaned in closer once again.
The man left the motel and crossed the street toward one of the cars parked in the same car park where Bolden was parked. He stepped into the vehicle, started it, and accelerated. Well, if he was his man, there wasn’t much he could do about it now. The investigator turned his attention to the motel.
How would he survive any more time without any jerky? He knew he’d gone through his stash too quickly. Maybe the establishment had vending machines where he could get his fix without having to leave his post.
His attention was quickly drawn back to the present when a car stopped behind him. It was the same one the man had gotten into, and alarm bells clanged in his head. They intensified when his quarry stepped out of his car, a gun in his hand, and moved quickly toward Bolden.
Instinctively, he stretched his hand to the glove compartment where he kept his Beretta. He barely had his hands wrapped around the cool grip of the weapon before he was showered with glass pellets. The man had broken the window, and hands latched onto his collar. For a medium-sized man, his assailant was as strong as hell and smoothly and effortlessly dragged Bolden through the window, thrust his back into the car parked alongside, and dropped him unceremoniously.
The sleuth realized that he still had his weapon in hand. He aimed at the man who loomed over him and yanked forcefully on the trigger.
It clicked and he tried again with the same result. He scowled at the weapon. Had it chosen right now to jam? Of all times? Well, he guessed that any time a gun jammed was the worst time that it could happen, but this was really fucking up there.
“Safety’s on, dumbass,” his attacker pointed out and wrenched the pistol from his grip. It didn’t take much effort, and the man hammered the butt of it quickly into Bolden’s nose.
“Oh…fuck, what did you do that for?” he asked and clutched his face as blood leaked between his fingers.
“I have anger issues,” the man said with a small grin. He tucked the Beretta into his belt before he aimed what looked like a Glock at his head. “I could see you from the window of the room. You’re not very subtle, which tells me that you aren’t the same caliber of the people I’ve dealt with over the past couple of
days. Please tell me that you’re only here looking to ogle some motherfucker cheating on his wife. I’d like to think that I warrant better goons than you. It’s an ego thing, you understand.”
“Yeah…the dude’s cheating on his wife.” Bolden seized the out with relief. “The wife wants a divorce and needs leverage to make sure she can retire in the luxury that she deserves and all that.”
“I wish I could believe you,” his adversary said with a sigh, yanked the car door open, and disappeared inside for a couple of seconds. The thought that he might be able to escape crossed the investigator’s mind. Or maybe fight back…but he doubted it. He liked to think his instincts were something he could rely on, and every instinct in his body told him not to fuck with the man who had made him, destroyed his car window, and maybe damaged his face in ways that only a plastic surgeon would be able to fix.
Don’t fuck with the guy with a gun. The more he considered it, the more he thought it sound advice.
“See, I really hoped that you weren’t lying, but this is some damning evidence,” his erstwhile quarry said from inside the car before he stepped out. The two pictures that Bolden had been given were in his hand. “Shit, is that really what I look like? I mean, I get the whole…rugged thing, but I always thought I at least had some flattering cheekbones or something.”
“Sorry, you just don’t have it,” he grumbled through his broken and bleeding nose. “I’m sure you make up for it in other ways. A sparkling sense of humor, maybe? Or you simply have a big dick that lets the ladies ignore your less than striking features.”
“I wouldn’t want to make you feel inadequate, dumbass,” the man said with a grin as he pocketed the camera as well as the images. “Besides, it seems like you and I have better things to talk about anyhow. Get up. I don’t want to drag you but I fucking will if I have to.”
Bolden nodded and shoved up from the ground with the aid of his captor, who hauled at his collar. Maybe the asshole assumed that he tried to stall when he took so long and overlooked the fact that he’d just broken his fucking nose.
He half-walked and was half-dragged across the street toward the motel room the man had exited only a few minutes earlier. There were no cameras in the establishment, obviously, not even at the entrance, where a disinterested young woman tended the front desk while she watched daytime television. Nobody was there to back him up. Even if he had someone, his aversion to using modern phones due to his status as wanted by murderous psychopaths high on cocaine meant that nobody would know where to find him if they knew he was in trouble.
The car was a rental, Bolden remembered as the man shoved him up the steps. He would have to pay for the broken window. That, or it would be charged to the credit card he’d left behind. That would suck. His credit history was bad enough as it was. Maybe disappearing wasn’t such a bad idea.
The door unlocked with a click and the woman from the picture opened it. The two of them entered and she closed and locked it behind them. He was tossed onto the bed as his captor drew the Beretta from his belt, checked it a couple of times, and dropped it on a table before he trained the Glock on him.
“You’ll want to talk right about now,” the gunman said in a cold voice that sent chills down Bolden’s spine. The very real possibility that he wouldn’t walk out of there alive slid in behind the shiver.
“Savage, you can’t kill him,” the woman said and looked panicked. She clearly wasn’t as well-trained as her comrade, and she looked like she was about to puke.
“This room is paid-up for the next two weeks, and the staff are under very strict instructions not to clean it,” Savage—which, apparently, was his real name—said in that same cool voice. He might as well have been talking about the weather given his tone.
“That’s why I don’t think you should kill him!” The woman took a step closer. She seemed to have a rapport with the man, and he seemed to listen to her, although he kept the gun aimed with quiet intent. Their interaction meant she probably wasn’t a hostage. Too bad.
“Well, if he talks and makes himself helpful, I won’t have to,” Savage said, and his smile wasn’t at all encouraging. “Now, would you mind if I conduct this little investigation? You can stay in the bathroom for the duration if you don’t want to watch.”
“Fuck you,” the woman said and rolled her eyes. Bolden smirked.
“What are you smiling about, Peeping Tom?” Savage asked and took a step closer to the bed. “Do you have something to tell me about who hired you to be on the lookout for us here in the motel? Why you’re…well, what looks like a private dick instead of the pros we’ve dealt with so far? No offense.”
“Private dick?” he asked. “Nobody talks like that anymore.”
“I talk like that anymore, smartass,” the other man snapped. “And if you keep deflecting, I’ll find other parts of you to break that aren’t as easily fixed as your nose, got it?”
He nodded. “Look, I’m a businessman. Not a particularly good one, I admit, but I don’t have any loyalty to the guys who are paying me beyond the fact that they are paying me. Now, you can torture me to your heart’s content, but nothing will make me talk. At least, not anything that will be quick enough. You obviously want to get away from these guys, and they already know what motel you’re staying at. That means you need to get out of here as quickly as possible. Am I wrong?”
Savage tilted his head and regarded him with a blank expression. “Keep talking.”
“Right,” Bolden tried to talk as quickly as his mind moved. “Again, I don’t have any loyalty to these guys, but they’ve paid me, and you haven’t. Tell me we can make a deal here. Add some incentive, and everyone walks away happy, you know?”
The gunman narrowed his eyes. “What kind of incentive are we talking here?”
He shrugged. “How much do you have?”
The man looked like he was thinking it over. He had a quick mind too and apparently agreed with the concept that they both needed to get out of the place as quickly as possible. Options were limited. He strode over to a duffel bag in the corner of the room, shoved some items aside, and returned with a wad of small bills.
“There’s about twenty-eight hundred bucks in there—all small bills, all nonsequential,” he explained.
“What do you know?” Bolden grinned and took the money, careful not to stain the bills with his blood. “The perfect amount. What do you two want to know?”
“Who hired you?” Savage asked quickly.
“Some guy in a suit,” he answered truthfully. “He didn’t give me his name, not even a card. He gave me cash money and a number to call once I could confirm that the two of you were in the motel and which room you were in. The man was a local hire, like me, but he said his employer was in something of a rush. I didn’t ask for any explanations, and I didn’t get any. He gave me the pictures and the motel address.”
“This all happened last night?”
“I’m something of a night owl,” he replied with a shrug. “And I put the word out in town to call me any time of the day or night and that I take cash only. No checks. A guy has got to have standards, right?”
“Right.” Savage smirked. “How did the guy contact you?”
“In person, at my bar,” Bolden said. “It’s where I do business since I can’t exactly have an office.”
“Here’s what I need you to do—what’s your name again?”
“Harry Bolden,” he replied quickly and almost forgot that he hadn’t brought any ID and that he probably should have lied about his own name. Oh, well, the horse was already out of the gate on that one.
“Bolden, here’s what I want you to do.” Savage sat beside him on the bed, the pistol still aimed at his head. “I need you to call that number. Tell the people you were proactive and took me and my friend here captive. Tell them you saw this as a way to make extra money, and you want them to pay double what they offered before, plus expenses. The guy broke the window of your car when you took him down, after all. Name a
place and a time and have them go there to meet you.”
“Look, Savage, you look like you’re a real smart guy,” Bolden retorted with a nervous chuckle. “A right, bright fucking penny. Twenty-eight hundred is enough to make me talk with a gun to my head, no doubt about that. But if you actually think that I’ll be involved in a sting for that, you’re not as smart as I thought you were.”
The man smiled. “Who the fuck said you would be involved in a sting? No, you’ll make the call, take the money and, I assume, get the fuck out of Dodge. You were hired by some incredibly dangerous people who have access to unlimited guns and murderers who have killed people all weekend. I’m here to make the killing stop, understand?”
Bolden nodded. Well, things had started to look up now. He might make it out of this room alive after all.
Savage pulled out the phone that had been in the investigator’s pocket. Bolden made a face. He didn’t even recall the man taking it. Then again, he had been a little distracted on the walk over to the room.
“Make the call, dumbfuck. And you’d better fucking sell it.”
Jeremiah couldn’t help an eye roll as Jessica stepped out of the changing room, dressed in a sundress with floral patterns. He had to remind himself that according to Carlson’s plans, she was supposed to be dead. That meant she couldn’t go back to her house and collect the clothes she still had there because someone was likely to be on the lookout to finish the job.
The problem was that he didn’t like the fact that he had to come along for the shopping trip.
“Fucking hell, Jer, could you be any more of a cliché?” Anja asked through his earpiece. “I can see how bored you look from five different camera angles.”