by L. T. Ryan
I talked with the old guy behind the counter about the Packers and how with Rodgers at the helm they’d see a Super Bowl soon. He agreed and relayed his dismay over Favre’s betrayal by shacking up with the Vikings.
“Can’t really fault him, though,” I said. “Guy’s gotta make a living, right?”
The old guy shrugged. “Some ways of making a living aren’t all that honest, son. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah, you could say I do.”
I continued a bit further down the road until I found a drug store. I went inside and grabbed a bottle of peroxide and some bandages for the dog, canned dog food, and a second burner phone. Though no information was required to purchase one, I’d be recorded on the store’s CCTV, and a smart investigator could match up the purchase time with the phone and get the number. Having two bought from separate places might come in handy later if I needed to reach out to another contact.
I finished my coffee, left the store, and made my way back to the hotel. In all I was gone a little over an hour. The cold was bothering me less and less with every passing minute. All the time outside had started the adaptation process.
Lexi sat on the bed cross-legged, paging through a magazine. She lifted her eyes and nodded at me. The dog sat on the floor at the end of the bed. His ears perked up when he saw me. I knelt down and scratched his neck, then went to work patching him up.
“Have a good walk?” she asked.
“Have a good nap?” I asked.
She shrugged. So did I.
“Hungry yet?” she asked.
“Had some coffee, so I’m all right for the moment.”
She hesitated a second, eyes on me. “I am too, I guess. Thanks for asking.”
“I didn’t.”
She sighed and went back to the magazine. “Gonna be a long couple days.”
“Couple days? The hell you talking about. We’re gonna—”
“We’re gonna nothing,” she said. “Look, Jack, I’ll fill you in soon. I promise, I will. I’m waiting on some intel that might lead us to Thanos.”
That shiver ran down my spine again. “Who’ve you been talking to?”
“No one that’s going to try and track us down.” She flipped to a new page in her magazine. “Trust me.”
“You keep telling me to trust you, but you haven’t really given me a reason to.”
“Oh yeah, Mr. Lamb. Or is it Mr. Jack? Jack Jack? Just Jack? Will you still be Jack tomorrow?”
“Cut it out. I don’t need this.”
“You know, you’re lucky you’re not in jail right now.”
“I’m calling BS right there.”
“Why?”
“You won’t even check in with your SA, yet you’re telling me you’re doing a favor keeping me out of jail?”
She remained stone faced. I could have hurled anything at her at that moment and I don’t think she’d have blinked. Her predicament couldn’t be as sticky as mine. Here I was, on a job to kill a man, and now I’m mixed up with what could be a rogue FBI agent. Then again, she was with me. Maybe it’d be worse for her.
“Fact is,” I said, “if I end up in jail, you’ll be in the cell right next to mine. Not for the extra punishment it’ll provide me, which, let’s face it, I probably deserve. But because you’re in as deep shit as I am. The sooner you and I start working together, the sooner we can get this problem resolved.”
She glanced toward the window. The sun hovered low in the orange-tinged sky, casting her face in its glow.
“On second thought,” she said, “I am hungry. Let’s go get that steak.”
16
We left the dog a can of food and some water and headed out on foot to find a place to grab a steak and a beer. The wind gusted from the south, carrying with it a warm front. Must’ve been sixty degrees out. Dark clouds raced north, blocking out the last traces of the setting sun. Half the town was on the streets in shorts and t-shirts. The reprieve from the cold only came so often, everyone had to take advantage of it. The globe-like street lights illuminated the sidewalk leading into the heart of the town.
We strolled along for thirty minutes until we came to Erin’s Snug Irish Pub. Smoke piled over the building and the aroma of searing meat slipped through the open front door.
“Look good?” Lexi asked.
“Smells even better.” Any place that had a sign with a lady doing an Irish step dance with a cow had to be worth a try. I nodded my approval and pulled the door all the way open for Lexi. As she slipped past, I caught a hint of her scent. No perfume or fancy shampoos, just her. I felt myself drawn to her.
A college-aged girl with pig-tails sat us at a table near the front windows. Not my ideal spot, but we were in Madison, Wisconsin. I didn’t plan on running into anyone I knew here. Of course, I never did. Yet folks showed up out of the woodwork in the most unusual places.
The air between us was tense as we waited for the waitress to return with our drinks. Did Lexi have as much to say as I did? Was her mind overrun with questions? Were the tables turning on her over how she felt about me, like I was for her?
Shake it off, man. This isn’t the time.
Lexi opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by the server, who carried our drinks on a tray. I realized I hadn’t paid the woman any attention aside from her hairstyle. Couldn’t have picked her out of a lineup if someone had a gun to my head. I glanced at her, and the rest of the people occupying the small tavern. Aside from one large guy with a shaved head and a full sleeve seated at the bar, there wasn’t much to worry about inside Erin’s.
I lifted the pint of Yazoo Sue and inhaled the leathery, smoked tobacco smell. The first taste did not disappoint. Lexi sipped her Espresso Martini.
“That the best drink to go with a steak?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Best of both worlds, friend. Caffeine and vodka. Can’t beat it.”
“Guess not.” I slid my glass across the table. “Try this.”
She studied the black liquid inside my glass. “Not really a fan of dark beers.”
“Drink it.”
She took a swig, biting against the initial bitter taste. Her face relaxed as the subtleties of the brew set in. She lifted her eyebrows and nodded. “Not bad, I guess.”
We finished our first round of drinks. I ordered the same while Lexi switched to the house red wine. After the second round arrived, I settled into my seat. Lexi’s stiff posture eased some, and she leaned forward over her crossed arms. The tension between us was lifting.
She tore a chunk of bread off the loaf set in the middle of the table and lathered it with real butter. Her lips glistened after taking a bite. She licked the buttery oil off, took a drink, and leaned back in her seat.
“Level with me, Jack.”
“About what, Lexi?”
She smiled slightly for a second, then her lips thinned, her brows lowered, her gaze intensified. “What were you doing at the house this morning?”
I remained still, one hand on my glass, the other draped over the top of the booth. I didn’t avert my eyes, tick my head, or any of a dozen moves that would have given me away.
“You know I can’t tell you that,” I said. “Anymore than you can tell me your purpose there.”
She sighed, crossed her arms. Her expression changed in an instant from stone-faced to pleading. “Seriously?”
“Hey, you wanna share? Then kick the party off by telling me what you were doing there, and why you were so concerned with Thanos’s safety.”
“You know why I was there.”
“You fed me one line, Lexi. That’s it.”
She sat motionless, gazing off toward the bar.
“That’s what I thought,” I said.
“I was there because I got a tip,” she said.
“About?”
“That someone was going to take—”
The waitress appeared with our food. She set the tray down and placed our steaks in front of us. Lexi had gone with a sirloin, medium-rare. It
was a rare ribeye for me.
We each took a couple bites while the waitress finished up, then Lexi continued.
“—a contract on him.” The steam from her vegetables created a thin smoky veil between us.
How I reacted to her statement was important. No shock or surprise and she might assume the SIS was behind it. Too much, and it’d look like I was faking.
“We heard the same,” I said.
She set her knife and fork down, reached across the table. “From who?”
I shook my head, pulled my hands back out of reach. “Not from any of my sources. I’m working on someone else’s intel here.”
She took a deep breath and leaned back.
“And even if it was,” I said. “I couldn’t just reveal them. You know how this works.”
Lexi resigned herself that the conversation wasn’t going anywhere without her giving up information she wanted to keep close to the vest. She took a few more bites of her steak, finished her wine and signaled to the waitress to bring her another glass.
While waiting, she said, “Getting bounced from clandestine ops hurt.”
I waited to see where she would take it, but she didn’t say anything else. Her gaze was fixed firmly on me. “I can imagine. I’ve been in situations where I had to leave an op, leave a job that I… I don’t want to say enjoyed, but one that gave me purpose. Know what I mean?”
She nodded, then said, “Why’d you leave?”
I took a drink, wiped the foam off my lip. “Which job?”
She laughed. “Guess the one you enjoyed the most?”
“Asshole boss.” I paused a beat. “How’d you blow your cover?”
“Who says I blew it?”
I shrugged. “Assumption, I guess. Anyway, getting outed doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t ever go in the field undercover again. Switch regions or targets, yeah. But totally bounced?”
“You’re right. I didn’t want to move to the west coast.”
“That’s rubbish, Lexi. I can see how much the job meant to you. You’d have gone wherever they wanted you to go. Is staying in Chicago doing boring field work, or God forbid, being a cubicle dweller, better than doing what you love?”
Her cheek sucked inward as she chewed on it. After a few moments, she said, “My husband was a good man with a horrible sickness.”
“Cancer?”
“No, not like that.” She spun her knife on the table. “Addiction.”
I could see how that could be a problem for an FBI agent. “Drugs?”
She shrugged and nodded. “And drinking, and gambling. Later I found out it was prostitutes, too.”
I started to see where this was going . “So you got kicked because of him, something he did.”
“I take full responsibility for my actions. I do not blame him. Like I said, he was sick.”
“I’m sure the agency shrink loves that you’ve made so much progress, but you can cut the Al-Anon talk with me. What’d he do that got you in trouble?”
She shifted in her seat, wiped her hands on her napkin. “That’s the thing, Jack. Nothing. He did nothing. He was sick, and his sickness led him into a very bad situation.”
“And sucked you right into it, too.”
17
The tavern thickened with patrons. Every seat at the bar had been taken. All tables were occupied. There was a line out the building, stretching down the sidewalk. A guy with a thick brown beard and dark-rimmed glasses stared through the window at my steak. Every time the door opened, a warm gust enveloped me, carrying with it the smell from the bakery next door.
The waitress set a fresh beer down in front of me. I dipped my finger and swirled it around to take some of the life out of the head.
Lexi hadn’t responded to my last statement, which told me I was close to the answer. She got up and excused herself and disappeared into the restroom.
I used the break to reassess the makeup of the crowd. It was a good mix of students from the University of Wisconsin, and the working class folks of Madison. No one stood out, which was a good thing. After nearly two decades in the business, a bunch of faceless people was the best present I could receive. The only one in the crowded room that stuck out appeared again. Lexi wove through the room like a dancer. Effortless.
“Gonna finish that?” I pointed at her steak and stuck my fork in it after she shook her head.
“How can you still be hungry?” she asked.
“Not so much that I’m hungry.” I cut off a chunk and stuck it in my mouth. “I don’t know when we’ll get a meal this good again.”
She sipped on her wine and watched me eat. A few silent minutes passed. I knew how to play this game, and so did she. First to talk loses, and that person would have to reveal more of their hidden past. I’d either hit the nail on the head, or had it all wrong. Question was how long she could go without letting me know.
It didn’t take too long to get my answer.
“He didn’t suck me into some strange problem or into the underbelly of society,” she said.
“Is that right?” I said between chews.
“I had a choice. I could have left him to those sharks. Let them break his arms again. Or maybe his legs this time. Perhaps this would be the evening they’d pull the trigger.”
I said nothing while waiting for her to continue. Her eyes were wide, bright, wet.
“I don’t know how he got the number. I mean, when I was under, I was under. No one was supposed to be able to find or reach me. Not even my handler.”
“Really?”
“With the group I had infiltrated? I had to keep everyone past arm’s distance. These were the type of guys who wouldn’t stop at me if I’d been made. They’d torture me until they had enough info to get to everyone.”
“Not exactly folks on the up and up.”
Lexi nodded. “You could say that, at least to the rest of the world. Truth was, they were in deeper than anyone would have ever imagined. Myself included. They weren’t my original mark. I was introduced after some time. He was the one behind it all.”
She had me intrigued. “Who?”
Lexi smiled and wagged her index finger. “Can’t do that. I’m already on the verge of losing my job. I reveal that secret and I’m not only out of the Bureau for life, I’ll be in lockup. How do you think I’d do in the pen?”
I studied her for a moment. She was slim and athletic. Pretty, but not overly so. She hardly wore any makeup. I imagined she’d be a knockout all dolled up.
“Yeah,” I said. “You’d be taken out pretty quick.”
“Or live my life in solitary confinement. I may be a good actress, but I can’t stand being alone all the time.”
“So back to the husband and this situation you got caught up in.”
Lexi nodded, took a drink, continued. “He called me in the middle of a meeting. I ignored it at first. I mean, I was undercover, meeting with a mob boss and a politician. I couldn’t even take a second to figure out how he had the number. But the damn phone kept buzzing and buzzing.”
“What were you there for?”
“Pardon?”
“In the meeting,” I said. “What was your purpose there?”
She stammered for a moment. “You know I can’t reveal that. It’s all classified.”
“I’ve got clearance.”
She laughed. “I’m sure you do. Tell you what, if you have the access and can find the non-redacted file, have at it.”
I’d get it out of her sooner or later. Probably later. Not that it really mattered, I was curious though. Whose life did she pretend to lead? What did she do for a living, and how did it benefit a mob boss and a politician? For that answer, I had to think about what would bring two such people together.
Money and power and lots of both.
“You were some kind of finance guru, right?”
She turned her head slightly, said nothing.
“Why else would those two have you in a room. Unless you were posing as an assa
ssin.” I crossed my arms and looked her over for a moment. “Nah, that wouldn’t be the case. Definitely a numbers gal.”
“Good guess,” she said. “That doesn’t mean you’re right.”
“OK. Anyway, get back to what happened.”
“I get out of the meeting, flustered as hell, and answer the next call. He’s being held, said they’d beat the hell out of him already and were threatening to kill him. I tried to get him to calm down, tell me what they wanted. Next thing, he screams like I’ve never heard him do before. Guy gets on the phone, says he’s holding my husband’s middle finger in his hand.”
“He cut it off.”
She nodded. “Didn’t start with fingernails or anything like that. Just cut the damn thing off at the bottom knuckle. So I ask them what they want. They hang up.”
“Can’t imagine what you were thinking right then.”
“Well, I was pissed, but the guy’s my husband, and I love him and all that. At least, I make myself believe I do. Anyway, I have to get him out of there. And here’s where I made two major mistakes. First, I was supposed to meet again with the mob boss after he finished dealing with the politician. I blew him off.”
“And second?”
She lowered her chin to her chest. “I called a contact at the bureau, had them trace my cell. The one I was using with my cover.”
“They weren’t part of clandestine ops.”
She shook her head and took a drink. “Talk about breaking protocol.”
“So what happened?”
“They traced the location of my husband’s cell phone. Some dive in the projects, little three-room place. I went there, took out the lookout, broke into the dingy house. When I saw him, he was battered, bloody, missing two fingers. His right eye was swollen shut. His nose was broken in two places. Half his bottom lip was hanging off.”
“Jesus.”
“Right? So, anyway, I shoot the first guy I see. It’s a fatal shot, guy goes right down. Then another man bursts out of the bedroom. I draw on him, got him dead to rights.”
She’d already killed one man, and injured another, all while breaking rank and disappearing. “Kill him, too?”