by Michael Kerr
Leonard Petty didn’t know what had woken him up. He sensed that it had been a noise out in the corridor, so got up and walked through to the door of his apartment and opened it. Being in his seventies had not dented his spirit or caused him to become more timid. He was a Vietnam veteran, had been awarded a purple heart, and would still take on all comers if need be. If a couple of junkies or drunken teenagers from one of the other apartments were running wild, then he would nip it in the bud.
Larry almost shot the old man that appeared beside him at an open door. But he saw that there was no threat. The guy was all bones and wrinkles and white hair, wearing striped pajamas that were far too big for his slight frame. The shots must have woken him up.
Wheeling round and stopping, Larry put his left arm around the man’s neck and employed enough pressure to almost cut his breath off. He backed up towards the elevator and shot twice at Logan as he saw him knelt outside the door of Will’s apartment.
“Press the call button,” Larry said to his human shield as they reached the elevator. And to Logan he shouted, “This old fart will die if you don’t go back inside and shut the door. And be aware that we know who you are, Logan, and who your dumbfuck buddy is.”
Logan moved back through the open doorway. He had no choice. A shootout would have resulted in the hostage that Larry held being killed. He waited; heard the elevator door open and then close. He ran for the stairs, but stopped before reaching them. There was no immediate rush to deal with the man whom he was sure, from Will’s description of Cady and his men, was Larry Kramer.
Tom was at the door, ready to follow Logan. “Did you get him?” he said.
Logan shook his head. “No. Some old guy came out of his apartment and got taken as a shield. We’ll leave here and go after him, now that we have his address.”
Will was dead. Logan checked him. Two slugs from the first spray of shots from the MP5 had passed through the back of the settee and hit him. One had punctured his left lung and the other had nicked his aorta. He had become unconscious in less than thirty seconds, and had bled out a minute later. It had been a messy but relatively swift exit from existence. There hadn’t been a lot of pain; just a cramping in his chest accompanied by dizziness as he ran out of tomorrows.
“Grab his laptop,” Logan said to Tom as he picked up the sheaf of photocopies. “It’s time we left. The girls are in danger.”
“What do you mean?” Tom said.
“They must have spotted us before we followed Will. Probably used a security camera to zoom in on the car. They will have checked the plate number, so know who you are. I imagine there are already a crew on the way to the store.”
Larry got out of the elevator on the first floor and walked backwards to the main door, dragging Leonard, unmindful that he had passed out, due to the pressure on his windpipe stopping enough oxygen from reaching his brain.
Outside, Larry made it to the Toyota. There was no sign of Logan or the other guy, so he dropped the old man on the sidewalk and shot him twice in the head before getting in, starting the vehicle up and driving away.
Tom phoned Gail. He needed to warn her that visitors with bad intentions were on the way. There was no answer. He felt a stab of panic as he realized that he was probably already too late.
Logan tried to contact Debbie on the throwaway cell he’d left with her. It just rang and rang.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
VINCE had instructed two men to drive to the address in Alva and find out everything that there was to know about Thomas Cody.
Lee Harper was behind the wheel of an old flame-red Pontiac Firebird. As a kid he’d fallen in love with the model, being an avid fan of James Garner, the actor who’d driven one throughout The Rockford Files TV series. Ford had stopped manufacturing the car in 2002, but Lee was determined to keep his on the road till hell froze over.
“What’re we supposed to do when we get there?” Boo Mercer said through the mouthful of gum he was chewing.
“Ask questions,” Lee said. “All we know is that the guy is currently in Fort Myers. Maybe he’s married and his wife will be at the store.”
“What if there’s nobody there?”
“Then we’ll break in and toss the place. Find out all we can and report back to Palmer.”
“Sounds like a waste of time and gas.”
“Whatever. We get paid to follow orders. Don’t knock it, Boo.”
Boo blew a bubble, sucked the gum back in when it burst, and licked his lips. He knew that Lee was right. They were pretty far down the food chain in Nick Cady’s outfit, and that suited Boo just fine. He was happy to run errands and beat up on jerk-offs that didn’t pay their protection dues on time. He liked to break bones with his Louisville baseball bat, which had been his pa’s and was thirty-two inches long and made of ash. It was a real attention-getter. A couple of belts with it always decided a holdout to hand over the green.
The sudden bang and jolt almost caused Lee to lose his grip on the steering wheel. He managed to stay in control and bring the car to a stop on the grass next to the blacktop.
Boo was coughing, due to swallowing his gum. “What happened, did you hit something?” he asked Lee when he could speak.
“A blowout,” Lee said. “First one I’ve had in ten years.”
They got out and changed the wheel. The rusted lug nuts took forever to remove. Fifteen minutes later they were back on the road again.
The sign for Cody’s Country Store was lit up by a single tube of blue neon. Lee slowed down as he drove past. It was the middle of the night. They would have to break in and play it by ear. After driving about three hundred yards farther, he stopped and did a K-turn on the dark, narrow highway and headed back at not much more than walking pace, with the lights off. He pulled into the parking lot and killed the engine.
Debbie was wide awake. She had sat in the large dining kitchen at the rear of the store and swapped life histories with Gail as they had consumed half a bottle of bourbon before going to bed. She was in a second-floor room at the front of the store, and was standing at the window looking out and up to the moon and star-filled heavens, thinking that they had been one of the few constants throughout her life. An unknown number of generations come and go, to suffer all the physical and emotional hardship thrown at them, believing as individuals that being in the world and what they did in it was in some way important, and that their having been born and lived was ordained; not just a random and totally insignificant event. Given time, even the Grand Canyon would crumble away, and mankind’s extinction was inevitable, because she believed the scientists who’d said that once the hydrogen in the core of the Sun ran out, it would expand outward into a red giant and consume the solar system. But whatever happened in the far future was not her concern. Neither was the past. History was dead and gone, like yesterday’s news. Here, now, and Kelly’s safe return was all that mattered in the universe.
The car caught her eye. It was moving too slowly, purposefully, not just being driven at what would be considered normal speed. She waited and placed her face near the window to look to the right and keep it in sight. The brake lights flared. The vehicle stopped, turned, and the lights went out. It crept back towards the store like a dark, stalking predator.
Running out onto the landing, Debbie called Gail, and knocked on her bedroom door.
“What?” Gail said, appearing blurry-eyed and wearing nothing but a pair of panties. “You had a nightmare?”
“No, I couldn’t sleep. I was standing at the window and a car went by really slow, and then it came back with the lights off. I’ve got a bad feeling about it.”
“Doesn’t make sense,” Gail said, going back into the bedroom to pull on her jeans and a T-shirt. “No one could possibly know anything.”
They went through to the front, to look out and see two men standing below. One drew a handgun and headed off around the side of the store. The other hammered on the door with his fist.
Boo made short work of the l
ock on the back door. There weren’t many things in life that he was good at, but lock picking was one of them. He used a short-handled bolt cutter to snip through the security chain that had been engaged, and walked into the kitchen.
Lee waited a few seconds and then knocked again.
“Who is it?” Gail shouted from where she was standing behind the counter at the rear of the store.
“Just a guy who needs to make a phone call,” Lee said. “I got a flat and don’t have a spare, and I can’t get a signal on my cell.”
“The door’s open,” Gail said. “Come on in.”
Lee turned the handle and entered. It was gloomy inside, and something was bothering him. Why was the woman out of sight, and why had the door been unlocked? He drew his gun. This felt like a setup, even though there was no way that he and Boo could’ve been expected.
“Drop the gun,” Gail said. “If you don’t, I’ll shoot you.”
His night vision was good. He saw the dim shape of the woman behind a counter. She was holding something bulky. It looked like a crossbow.
“Put the crossbow down, honey,” Lee said. “All I want is to ask you a couple of questions.”
Gail chuckled. “You’re an armed intruder, and believe me if you don’t lose the gun you’ll have an arrow sticking out of your chest. Make a decision.”
The blood-curdling scream from the kitchen froze Gail and Lee for a second. Lee recovered first, moved to the side and loosed off four shots at the woman.
Gail felt one bullet burn a path across her forearm, and dropped down behind the solid oak counter for cover, moved sideways, crablike, and rose up to find her target and pull the trigger.
Lee felt a piercing agony as the arrow entered his chest, just above his right nipple. The broadhead metal tip of the carbon shaft erupted from his back, and he fell to his knees as his fingers lost their grip on the gun and it clattered to the floor.
Gail quickly reloaded the bow and hesitantly approached the man. Kicked the gun away from him, then took the time to go over to it, squat down and swap it for the crossbow. “If you try to stand up, I’ll shoot you dead,” she said, unaware that her cell was vibrating on the dresser upstairs, moving ever nearer to the edge of it.
Debbie had been standing back at the side of the kitchen door. She didn’t move as she heard the light scraping and probing as someone picked the lock. The door opened a couple of inches, and then the jaws of some kind of wire cutter appeared and snipped through the safety chain. Her grip tightened on the handle of the large hunting knife that Gail had furnished her with. She knew that she should be scared shitless, but was just tense, feeling confidant and ready ‒ if necessary ‒ to plunge the serrated blade deep into the intruder’s neck, before running out of the door, in case he was somehow still able to fire the gun he held.
Boo stood perfectly still and listened. He could hear voices coming from the front of the store, and so assumed that someone had answered the door and let Lee inside. He relaxed, took two steps forward and then screamed as something tore into his shin bone at the front, fracturing it, as it simultaneously bit into his calf muscle at the back of his left leg.
Dropping the bolt cutter and his gun, Boo went down onto his right knee and groped with his hands to feel for what was causing him such excruciating pain.
Debbie darted forward, picked up the gun and backed off, to then switch on the kitchen light.
The man was moon-faced, a little overweight, and had wispy blond hair and bright blue eyes that were currently filled with tears. His hands were scrabbling ineffectively at the solid steel, hand-forged bear trap, which had been no more than an ornament hanging on a wall in the store for over fifty years.
The crushing force of the jaws had totally immobilized Boo. He looked down at the trap with a horror-filled expression on his now pale face.
Gail appeared at the inner door and smiled. “That worked a treat,” she said to Debbie. “It was worth us breaking a few fingernails to get it open and set.”
“What happened to the other one?” Debbie said, staring at the gun that Gail was holding.
“He has an arrow in his chest. Maybe he’ll die,” Gail said. “Let’s tie both of them up anyway, and then you can phone Logan and tell him what went down, while I pour us both another bourbon. I think we deserve one to settle our nerves after what we’ve just had to do.”
With the two men bound with their hands behind their backs, and of no further threat to them, they locked the back and front doors and went upstairs. Debbie picked up the cell and called the number Logan had given her.
“Are you okay?” Logan said. “We’ve been trying to call you both.”
“We were busy. We got visitors. Have you found Kelly?”
“We know where she is. We’re on our way back. What happened?”
“Two guys with guns made a house call, but we used our feminine charms and a crossbow and a bear trap to deal with them. They’re tied up and no longer fit for purpose.”
Logan grinned. But the situation was getting out of hand. Cady knew that Tom was involved. This really was turning into a full-blown war. He now felt a degree of responsibility for Tom and Gail, as well as Debbie. He was in deep against a large outfit, and reckoned that he would be better off operating alone.
Larry phoned Vince. Told him what had happened at Will’s apartment, then listened to silence for ten seconds; just waited for Vince to reign in his temper before saying anything.
“You broke in, took them by surprise and lost Johnny and Kelsey. Is that what you’re telling me?” Vince said.
“Yeah,” Larry said. “It went bad on us.”
“Bad? It’s a fuckin’ disaster. There’ll be cops all over the scene. They’ll link Will, Johnny and Kelsey to us. Nick will go fuckin’ crazy, and I’ll get the fallout.”
“What do you want me to do?” Larry said.
“Find Logan. I’m expecting word back on the guy who owns the Camaro. Boo and Lee are probably there now. They’ll call when they know anything. I’ll tell them to kill whoever is there, and then to torch the place. This has gone too far. I want Logan’s and the other guy’s heads served up on plates within twenty-four hours.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LOGAN checked the man tied up on the floor in the store. He was unconscious, his pulse was thready, and he didn’t look as though he was going to make it. The wallet from his pocket had a Florida driver license in it that identified him as Lee Harper. Pocketing the license, Logan went through to the kitchen. The man with the bear trap attached to his broken and swollen leg was sitting up with his back against the wall, trying to keep the lower part of his leg straight to avoid putting any undue pressure on it. He was moaning continuously. Logan frisked him and found his wallet in a back pocket of his jeans and his cell in his jacket. Checked the photo and name on his driver license and then pulled up a chair, sat down and said, “You think that you’re in a bad place, Boo Mercer, but it can get a whole lot worse, believe me. I’m going to ask you a few questions, and then get you to call whoever sent you here. How does that sound?”
“Like I don’t have a choice,” Boo murmured.
“You got that right. First, we’ll get rid of that trap. I daresay it will hurt a little.”
Logan called Tom down from upstairs, and the two of them levered open the steel jaws with their hands. As the rusted teeth came free, Boo shrieked like a stuck pig, and blood ran freely from the deep wounds.
“There you go,” Logan said. “Nearly as good as new.”
They lifted Boo up and sat him in a wooden chair. He was trembling, working hard to assimilate the pain he was suffering, and also believing that whatever he might say to these two men would probably not buy him his life.
Logan sat close up, facing Boo, while Tom heated up the coffeepot.
“How did you get this address?” Logan said.
“The Camaro,” Boo said. “A guy walked past you at the industrial park. He phoned it in with the plate number. The name of
the registered owner came up on a check. We were told to drive out here and find out what his connection was to you.”
Logan reflected on the time that they had been waiting outside NC Transport. The only pedestrian that he had noticed was a vagrant pushing a cart. “A homeless-looking guy?” he asked Boo.
“Yeah, Marty Shaw. He should’ve been an undercover cop. He likes to get into character when he’s doing surveillance.”
“And who are you due to report back to?”
“Vince Palmer.”
“Then that’s what you’d better do. I’ll tell you what to say to him, and then you can repeat it back to me,” Logan said as he produced Boo’s BlackBerry from his pocket. “Make sure that he believes you. Your life depends on it.”
Boo Mercer’s name came up on the screen of Vince’s cell.
“What do you know, Boo?” Vince said.
“That Tom Cody sold the store out here at Alva two months back. A gay couple owns it now. They told me that he mentioned moving up to Tampa, but they don’t have a forwarding address. I asked about the Camaro, and they said they’d paid him cash for it but hadn’t got round to doing the paperwork.”
A cold trail for now, Vince thought. “Head for home, Boo. I’ll call you and Lee when I need you,” he said before thumbing the END button.
“Good job,” Logan said, taking the phone back from Boo. “Problem now is what to do with you. You know too much about us.”
“I’m no threat to you,” Boo said. “I just lied to Vince Palmer. That makes me untrustworthy and a liability.”
“If I let you go and they ran you down, you’d talk,” Logan said. “You just spoke the truth when you said you’re a liability.”