The Way I Die

by Derek Haas

  In the second guy’s pocket is a handwritten map of this house, arrows and squiggly lines to indicate entry points, stairwells, bathrooms, bedrooms, closets. It’s fairly well-detailed, if useless. A few places have words printed on them in blocky masculine letters: master bedroom, boy’s room, boy’s room, that type of thing.

  Another thump upstairs and I look up the stairwell. I make a mental note to talk to Boone about all the noise he’s making. He may as well have a field radio and call out his position.

  Peyton returns with the quilts, and spots the drawing in my hands. “What’s that?”

  I show it to her.

  “Someone drew these guys a map.”

  Her face snaps white, then red, as the blood leaves then flushes her cheeks, a tide of emotion. She looks at me and sucks in air, then says, “I recognize that handwriting.”

  Boone says so many thank yous I have to stop him before I lose all respect for him, what little there was to begin with. The kids look shell-shocked and though I don’t need them seeing horrors that will keep them up at night the rest of their lives, I make sure we pass by the quilt-covered bodies on our way out of the house. The younger one, Josh, eyes the wall where gravity worked the blood into streaks.

  I snap my fingers a few times so I gather all eyes to me.

  “Peyton, you have a car big enough to fit all of us?”

  Boone speaks up, trying to be helpful. “I have a Range Rover.”

  “Nothing tied to you.”

  “Ahh,” he manages and lowers his head with one hand raised like he gets it and won’t interrupt again.

  Peyton speaks up. “I have an SUV. A Ford.”

  “Bring it around to the side of the house. There. Hop into the passenger side and keep the engine running.”

  She nods and is out the door, head on a swivel.

  The boys’ eyes are glazed, blocking out the world, one of the brain’s many defense mechanisms. If you can’t see it, you can’t feel it. Except that’s not true, not really. Another of time’s tricks. Horrors you think are buried deep in the past pop out of the darkness, fresh and dusted off, like only seconds have passed. The boys will come to grips with that truth soon enough. I’m not here to comfort them, although their father looks too rocked to provide much succor. I’m not paid to comfort. That’s his job.

  I level my eyes at him. He’s scared, and that’s better for me. “Keep doing what I say and we’ll come out of this on the other side.”

  “Yes. I will. Thank you.”

  “You carrying a phone?”

  He nods and hands it to me.

  “What about the boys?”

  The older one, Liam, nods, forks it over.

  “You?”

  Josh shakes his head. “Next birthday.”

  I move to the fireplace and toss their phones into the flames. No one protests. They’re in new territory, and their survival instincts engage.

  I drive toward Portland while I connect with Archie on my phone. We’ve always had a shorthand, and a few sentences inform him there’s already a body count, and I have Matthew Boone and the children with me, looking for a safe house. Archie agrees to call me back and in less than ten minutes he does, with directions northeast to Cedar Creek Road.

  We follow them until we arrive at a furnished farmhouse with a key under a brick on the porch. What arrangements he made and how fast he made them astounds me. I’m sure he was looking for real estate as soon as he set this job for us, but I am always surprised by how well he anticipates my needs. He really is the best fence in the business.

  The farmhouse is nice, set back from the road and positioned on top of a grassy knoll with views from a wraparound porch that might as well be from turret towers. The furniture is rustic, a lot of leather and animal horns, and there are a half dozen bedrooms and bathrooms. I’m sure it’s a rental, and that Archie paid a lot of cash to get the key with no questions. No one knows we’re here, and Archie will have used enough middlemen to keep it that way. The refrigerator is stocked, there’s firewood cut and stacked in a log rack, and there are plenty of warm blankets and quilts.

  Boone disappears with Josh and Liam upstairs, presumably to choose beds, but he doesn’t return and I hear muffled conversation drifting from above. Whether he’s selling them lies or telling them the truth, I don’t know.

  Peyton looks at me, hands on her hips. “I saw a coffeemaker if you want to split a pot.”

  “Sounds good.”

  She goes to work. After a moment, she calls out, “We never got around to it, but I want to say I’m very interested in the job if you still want me.”

  I can’t help but smile. “I figured you’d hightail it out of here now that you’ve seen how it works.”

  “You’d let me?”

  “I wouldn’t stop you.”

  “But I know where this house is.”

  “I trust you,” I say, and I mean it. Trust for me has always been instrumental in the way I conduct my business, and Peyton’s behavior during the siege says more than anything she could say with her mouth.

  “Well, I want the job and I’m gonna reward that trust.”

  “I bet you will.”

  I tell her Archie will work out the compensation details, assure her she’ll be taken care of, and she takes the information unconcerned. Money has never been important to me either. I got into this because I am good at it, and the part I only admit to myself when the lights are low is I like the power of killing. I’ve been doing it since I was very young, professionally since I was nineteen, and all it cost me was everyone I ever loved.

  Peyton asks me something but I miss it because the past is threatening to overwhelm me again and although I know how to arm myself against it, I find I’m inured to its call. I bathe in it now. I swim in it. I drown in it.

  The way I die is strangulation, choking on memories.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Are we in this alone?”

  I nod. “You, me, and Archie.”

  “What do I call you?”

  “Copeland.”

  “Is that a first name or a last name?”

  “Take your pick.”

  “Okay, Mr. Copeland. Do you mind telling me what you want me to do?”

  “I want you to stay here and put two bullets in anyone who walks through the door. If Mr. Boone asks to contact the outside world, you politely decline.”

  Boone speaks up from the stairwell. “I won’t. Try to contact anyone, I mean.” He steps into the room just as Peyton takes the pot off the burner. She nods at the coffee and he nods back, so she adds a third mug to the counter and pours us each a cup. I blow on mine, take a sip, and it’s strong and delicious. I don’t know if the owners left it or Archie stocked it, but tip of the cap to whoever did.

  “The boys are asleep,” Boone continues. “I think. I’m not sure actually. But I wanted to come down and thank you again and see what I can do to help. And to let you know . . . I’ll do—and the boys will do—whatever you tell us.”

  “For now, you’re doing it. Stay here, don’t leave the property. Don’t call anyone, don’t email anyone. Keep Peyton with you.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  I nod and drain the last of my coffee.

  “Where are you going?”

  I set the cup down and it rattles until it’s still.

  “Better to read about it later,” I say, and head out the door.

  I find him a few blocks from the apartment he rents downtown. The sky is a quilt, dark and light patches sewn together randomly, no comfort in the chaos, no acknowledgement from the sun. Let it hide.

  I’m in position to put eyes on the address Peyton gave me when I spot Max Finnerich at the window counter of a nearby sandwich shop, chewing on a Philly cheesesteak, anxiously checking his phone for messages, holding it to his ear to leave stern voice mails. His nose still has the twin butterfly bandages holding it together, boxer’s dressings. I look across the street to where an ATM is affixed to a wa
ll, and now I know why he’s sitting here, in this window, at this counter. He wants a time and date stamp of where he was when the murder took place, and the ATM camera will provide it.

  He looks worried, and he should be. His eyes drift outside to the street without seeing anything, his face as easy to read as a bargain bin thriller. He’s trying to get an update from the two amateurs who were gonna take out Matthew Boone, and presumably, they’ve missed the report time. He didn’t have a plan B, and his world is unraveling in front of him. He should’ve taken his severance and walked away, but I bruised his ego along with his nose in Matthew Boone’s office, and he wants a do-over.

  Finnerich looks at the phone’s face again, desperate for news, but it tells him nothing to assuage his fears. He tosses half his sandwich into a nearby trashcan, absently puts on his jacket and folded watch cap, and heads out the door. I face the window of a clothing store and watch him in the reflection of the glass as he trudges up the street back toward his apartment, hands stuffed in pockets, cheeks red though not from the cold. He doesn’t look in my direction.

  I know where he’s going so I don’t have to risk alerting him to my position. After five minutes, I follow.

  In the hallway outside his apartment door, I wait. There’s only one other door on this floor, and if someone enters or exits it, I’ll act like I’m delivering a package. I figure Finnerich is too jumpy to stay long anyway. In this job, you have to have patience. I could kick in his door, but I don’t know what’s on the other side, so I decide to—

  The door opens and before Finnerich can register his surprise, I rear back and kick him in the chest, sending him pinwheeling back into his apartment, arms spinning like fan blades, until he falls on his back. The black duffel he was holding, presumably his go-bag, parachutes away from him and bounces across the floor. His bewilderment turns to comprehension quickly, his eyes widen, and he twists onto his stomach and elbow crawls toward the bag. I kick the door shut behind me then spring across the room, drop a knee into his back, and pinch my Glock to the back of his head. He freezes, three feet away from his duffel, and raises his hands so that only his chest, waist, knees, and toes touch the ground.

  “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” he cries, his broken nose making it sound absurd. I get up, take a few steps back so I’m clear of lunging distance, and keep my gun aimed at his head.

  “Roll over.”

  He does, eyes sweeping hysterically but finding no salvation within reach. The bandages on his nose have slipped off on one side so they’re flapping like birds with busted wings. The wound I put there is open again.

  “Please, I’m sorry. I messed up and I’m sorry,” he blubbers.

  “Who paid you?”

  He looks genuinely confused. It gives me pause, so I try again. “Who were the guys at Boone’s house?”

  “Were?”

  “The men who paid you for the map and address?”

  “What?” Things clear for him. I can see understanding flood over him in a wave. “Wait. They didn’t pay me. I sent them. I wanted to show Mr. Boone—I wanted to show him what a big mistake he made getting rid of me. You got in his ear and messed with his head and he made a mistake. So I sent Steve and Tony to, you know, bust you up, show him you were nothing. That I was his guy. Not you.”

  A new thought arrives. “Oh, God . . . what’d you do to them?”

  “They’re dead.”

  His face twists into anguish, suddenly and violently. He starts bawling, sobbing with enormous wretches, so incongruous with the tough-guy demeanor he affected when he thought he was going to give me a beat down in the Popinjay offices when he took his shirt off and preened like a gamecock.

  “No. No. No no no no no no,” he wails, and his broken nose drips and splashes onto the floor.

  “Hey. Hey!” I snap with my free hand to try to bring him back.

  “No,” he blurts. “No! You did not kill them. You did not. They were just kids.” He sounds like a child throwing a tantrum.

  “Actually, they were adults with guns.”

  “They weren’t going to hurt anyone. Just you. But they weren’t going to—oh, God!” The last bit comes out in a spray of spittle.

  There was a time in my life when I would’ve killed this guy for making the mistake he made, trying to play a game way out of his league. He was a security professional, where men hit punching bags and shoot paper targets and wear dark sunglasses and parade around in tight muscle shirts and think the girls at the bar will flip. He probably likes the way his broken nose looks in the mirror, what it is going to do for his exaggerated stories sucked up by the barflies at the Pig N’ Whistle, especially when the fantasy was going to end with him winning back his job after scaring me away.

  “They were just kids. They were my sister’s kids.” He looks pathetic and distraught and harmless and I believe him. I move to the kitchenette, grab a towel off the refrigerator handle and wet it in the sink, all while keeping one eye on Finnerich. He sits where I left him, blubbering like a two-year-old. I’ve seen men cry before, but never like this. I throw the towel at him so it hits him in the chest. He catches it in his lap, so I tell him to clean himself up. He holds the towel to his face and cries harder, body shuddering with each sob. I’m getting annoyed.

  I loom over him, and when he lowers the towel, I crack him in the cheek with the flat of my hand. He yelps and then glares at me with unmasked hatred. At least he’s stopped crying.

  “Listen up and don’t say a word because I’m gonna lay out for you your next few years.” His breathing slows, and though his anguish hasn’t subsided, he’s paying attention. “First of all, the two bodies will be taken care of. If you go looking for them, you won’t find any sign they existed. There won’t be bodies in caskets at a funeral, there won’t be homicide investigators, or bullets pulled out for forensics. You think you know something about me? You wanna know more? Curiosity burning through you right now? I can tell you that you know less about me today than you did yesterday and you’ll know less again in a week, and when my face comes back to you every now and then in the quiet moments of the future, and you try to push it away.”

  He continues to glare at me as the wheels in his thick skull try to keep pace with the conversation, but I’m not sure he can get there. Or maybe I just want to keep him dizzy, off-balance. It’s an old habit I fall into whenever I deal with people who aren’t as smart as they think they are.

  “Now you’re asking yourself, what do I do next? I have to tell my sister her sons are dead, right? I will leave that to your discretion, but this is where two paths diverge in the woods. There’s one path where you cop to what you know and the questions grow exponentially difficult to answer. Your sister will ask how you know and you’ll tell her because you sent them to rough me up and there will be no evidence, just two missing grown men and your sister with more questions than you’ll ever be able to answer.

  “Then there’s another path for you. It’ll be hard at first, but will grow easier in time. This path is where you play dumb, where you say you have no idea what your nephews were up to, where every response is denial, and you’ll be the only one who ever knows the truth. On that path, there’s hope for you. Hope that doesn’t end with you dead or in jail.

  “You can choose which path to take. It’s irrelevant to me.”

  He wipes blood and snot off his face with the towel but hate still burns in his eyes.

  “Okay, I see the third path you’re thinking about, the one where you come after me, or Matthew Boone, or Boone’s family, or any number of revenge fantasies that’ll pop up from time to time in your head. Let me tell you what’s at the end of that path. This.”

  I nod at the Glock in my hand. “If Matthew Boone or I ever see you again, I will kill you, your sister, your mother and father, and any other person you ever loved. Look at me. I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again. I am not exaggerating. Your whole life, you’ve never met someone like me.”

  The light goes
out in his eyes.

  “I’m going to walk away from here and you won’t ever see me again. I don’t know if it’s in a week, or a month, or two months, but I suggest you get out of Portland, just so we don’t accidentally bump into each other.”

  I don’t bother giving him another minute, turn, and walk out the door.

  I used to hold no pity. I used to make people pay for their mistakes. So have I evolved or devolved?

  I’m in unchartered territory here, and I have been since Risina died on a covered bridge in Massachusetts and Pooley left with Jake. Archie shined a light on it when he tracked me down for this job offer, when he asked me to protect instead of subtract, and if his plan is to get me back in the game any way he can so I’ll kill for him again, I’m not sure he thought this through.

  I call him and let him know I’ve taken care of Finnerich but not “taken care of him.”

  Archie answers with a “Hmm,” but I let it go.

  5

  Peyton and I walk the perimeter of the farmhouse twice a day. I look forward to the ritual. Archie said he needed at least a week to get the information we need, so I settle in to play defense until the ball switches ends.

  I’m not built this way, waiting for someone to come to me, but I’m adapting. Evolution or devolution?

  “Why don’t you talk to the kids?” Peyton asks.

  “That’s not my job.”

  “Okay, but they’re lovely. The older one, Liam, he’s scared but he doesn’t want to show it. He’s always got a smile on his face, always a ‘How are you’ or ‘Thank you’ or a ‘That’s so cool.’ And the younger one, Josh, he’s a lion. Just when you think—”

  “Stop.”

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  “I don’t want to hear about the kids. I don’t want to hear about the dad or the kids or you.”

  “Well that’s shitty.”

  I grimace, but she digs in.

  “It is. You wanted the job. You had no problem waltzing in and taking it and now I’ve watched you, I helped you kill two men who meant to kill us, so we’re bonded as far as I’m concerned. That’s just how it is.”