The Way I Die

by Derek Haas

  Liam nods. “But I want to help you when you go after Mr. Finnerich.”

  “I know you do, but the assignment I’m giving you, it’s more important than what I’m doing. It’s more important than anything I’ve ever done, and I’ve lived a lot longer than you, so I know what I’m talking about. I do things to people that messes them up, messes their families up, their friends up, for a long, long time. But what you’re going to do for your brother when he gets back? That’s giving him life, and only the best people, only the best brothers, give that.”

  He stares at me for a long time to see if I’m shining him on, but realizes I’m not. He drops next to me so we’re side by side on the floor, unwraps another piece of candy, and pops it in his mouth.

  “I can do that,” he says.

  The phone buzzes again and this time I answer.

  “You’re dealing with me now,” I say with no emotion.

  There’s a long pause, and for a moment I think the line’s gone dead, but Finnerich’s voice breaks the silence.

  “Put Matthew Boone on.”

  “I just said, Max, you’re dealing with me now.”

  Another long pause, followed by, “I’ll kill him. I swear to you.”

  “Let’s meet and talk about that.”

  “I told Matthew where to meet and he didn’t show. There are going to be consequences for that.”

  “Yeah, well, luckily for Matthew, I kept him from walking into an ambush.”

  “His boy’s blood is on your hands.”

  “Jesus, you sound like what you are, Max. A goddamn amateur.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Listen to me because I’m going to talk to you the way professionals do. I have the fifty-six-character encryption code. I don’t give a fuck about it. You can jerk off to it in Moscow for all I care. Bring Josh in one hour to the address I text you. From what you know about me, I have no use for police. I’ll give you the encryption code and you give me Josh and that’ll be the last time we see each other. You don’t have to worry about loose ends because we aren’t telling anyone anything on our end. We can’t and won’t, and you know why.”

  “We meet at the original spot, the Tick Tock—”

  “Max, you dumb fuck, we’re not negotiating. This isn’t give and take. You’re not in charge. The only thing you get out of this is the codes. I assume you made contact with the Russian buyer directly, which is why you took your sweet time getting back to us. Good. Great for you. Get your codes, give us the boy, and fuck off.”

  “Don’t you tell—”

  I hang up and text him the address, then ignore the phone when it buzzes again. I text him “one hour” and turn off the phone for good.

  “Remember when I told you I’m going to need you to access that other side of you? The one who opened that door in the county jail in Los Angeles?”

  Peyton sits in the passenger seat of her Ford while I’m behind the wheel. I like this SUV. We’ve gotten to know each other and the old girl has character. She’s grown on me, like her owner.

  “I remember.”

  “This is that time.”

  “Max Finnerich shot me twice in the chest from behind a mask,” she says. “I’m already there.”

  I rub my chin. It has been weeks since I shaved.

  “And when this is done, you think you can go back to a normal life? Turn it off, turn it on?”

  “Do you?”

  “Nope.”

  She looks out the windshield, squints her eyes, thinking. “No, I don’t think so either.”

  The clock on the dash reads five to five.

  I crank the engine and roll the Ford past a collection of warehouses, past some kind of cannery, and then pull onto a dirt road that may have led to boat access on the Willamette River, but no longer leads anywhere. A couple of orange, faded DO NOT ENTER signs are posted at the end of the road but ivy has reclaimed the area and tugs at the signs, threatening to drag them to the ground. I reach the end of the road and execute a three-point turn so I can face Finnerich when he comes.

  I expect he’ll be alone, but maybe we’ll get lucky.

  “Okay,” I say, kill the engine, and open my door.

  Peyton follows my lead and climbs out of the passenger’s side. We move to the front bumper and lean back against the hood. She draws the Strike One knockoff Curtis sold her, keeps it pointed at the ground in front of her, covering the bulk of it with her free hand, like it’s natural, casual. I keep my hands free but I’m not going to begrudge her if she wants to get used to the feel of her weapon.

  Ten minutes pass before we hear the hum of an engine. The rumble grows louder as a vehicle approaches, and the rubber tires crunch and pop and spit up the gravel road around the corner. Finally, a Jeep Renegade appears and idles twenty yards away.

  The Oregon sky is clear for the first time since I arrived in the state and a few of the brighter stars venture out to shine early. The sun brushes the horizon and threatens to drop away completely, like it fears what is coming but wants to bear witness.

  Finnerich, alone, cuts the motor on the Jeep and steps out of his driver’s side. In his left hand, he holds an automatic pistol. In his right, he carries a phone. He looks like he’s been snorting something since the last time we saw each other. His eyes are red-rimmed and tempestuous. He’s like a weight lifter who has psyched himself up for the big dead lift, 500 pounds rolled onto either side of the bar. Ropy neck veins bulge, and sweat shines on his forehead and cheeks.

  He holds the phone up. “My friend has the boy!”

  “Your friend, Carmichael?” Peyton asks, and Finnerich seems to notice her for the first time.

  “That’s right, you bitch. Carmichael. And if he doesn’t hear from me in ten minutes, then he’s going to dump the body and disappear so you don’t see him again. So give me the codes and—”

  “Call him,” I interrupt.

  “What?”

  I raise my voice and enunciate slowly. “I don’t believe you.”

  “I don’t give a good goddamn what you believe.”

  “Call Carmichael or no deal. I want to hear his voice. You can stay over there. We won’t move.”

  Finnerich’s vein throbs, pulses. I can see it from here.

  “Damn it,” he says to himself and punches the number into his phone.

  I turn to Peyton. “Can you pinpoint a location if you have the caller on the other end of a cell phone?”

  “Yeah, I can get my friend to ping it.”

  Finnerich talks quickly into his cell and then holds it up high again, like he’s showing us a shiny, new trophy. “Okay, Carmichael’s on speaker. What do you—”

  I am not Copeland and I pull my Glock from its holster and I am a killer and I squeeze the trigger and I am Columbus and I am awake and I am angry and the shot rings out and Finnerich’s head jerks back and his blood paints his windshield.

  He hits the ground like a puppet with cut strings before the echo of the shot dies.

  I don’t look at Peyton as I hurry over and scoop up the phone and place it to my ear. “Carmichael, listen to me. Finnerich is dead. I’m standing over his body right now.”

  “I . . .”

  “Don’t panic, Carmichael. Be the smart one. Be smarter than you’ve ever been. Is Josh alive?”

  A moment that could go either way, a moment that spools out to infinity. His voice comes through tinny and small. “Yes.”

  “You’re not lying to me?”

  “No, he’s sleeping.”

  “Okay, listen. You’re going to do exactly what I say because it’s the only way you don’t end up dead at my feet like Finnerich, okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, don’t hang up the phone. Leave it on and place it next to Josh and wherever you’ve been thinking about running since this all went bad, run there.”

  “My mother’s?”

  “Sure. Go to your mother’s. Don’t ever come back, okay?”

  “Yes.”

&nb
sp; “Don’t forget to leave the phone on, Carmichael.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Okay. You did good. You’re smart.”

  “Thank you.”

  I lower the phone and toss it to Peyton. She hasn’t moved. She’s looking at Finnerich, dead in the dirt, blood still pumping from the hole in the back of his head.

  “Let’s go get, Josh,” I say.

  Peyton looks up at me.

  “Only a place for good and evil,” she whispers under her breath.

  The trailer is in the last slip in a mostly empty trailer park. I shoulder the door open and Peyton dashes inside and the interior is dank and dusty and the floor bounces with our steps like it might give way at any moment. Peyton has her gun out—an old cop habit I’m sure—and she presses forward and steps through a curtain and I’m behind her and Josh is handcuffed to a bed, filthy and wan and pallid but alive.

  Peyton bounds to him in a single step and claws at the handcuffs that bind his wrist. No sign of Carmichael and I have every confidence he is on his way to his mother’s house, wherever that may be.

  On the dresser, conveniently left for us to find, is the handcuff key. Crank, crank and I have it unfastened, his arm is free, and Peyton scoops Josh up and he fights her but she shushes him and soothes him and his struggles turn to sobs and the sobs turn to heaves, and she looks at me over his shoulder while she strokes his head.

  “Let’s get out of this dungeon,” she growls.

  We drive to the cabin and Liam is the first one out of the house. Josh hobbles out of our backseat and stands on the gravel driveway with shaky legs but that doesn’t stop a big brother from tackling his little brother onto the grass and they are rolling and tumbling and hugging and I’m not sure if they’re both laughing or crying and it doesn’t matter because they’re together.

  Peyton wipes tears from the corners of her eyes, sees me notice, and smiles, unashamed.

  Matthew Boone steps into the doorway, drawn by the commotion, and slowly realizes the source of the noise. His face contorts, cycling through a spectrum of emotion, and then he croaks a soundless “Josh.” His lungs refill, and louder, a wonderful sound now, a joyous sound, a sound a father makes when he finds his lost boy, “Josh!” he shouts, and he sprints across the lawn and piles on top of his sons so they are one rolling, teeming, laughing mass.

  Archie steps out on the porch, lights a cigarette, looks from the Boone family to me, and shakes his head, that half smile turning up the corner of his mouth.

  Whether he is hoping to see Copeland or hoping to see Columbus, I don’t know.

  EPILOGUE

  Age can creep up on a man, slowly working its hooks into a body and pulling it down over time, like a degenerative disease. Age can also attack all at once, ruthlessly and mercilessly, and rip a man apart in a matter of weeks, days, or hours. Ezra Loeb sits on a bench at the end of the Marina Del Rey pier, staring at Pacific Ocean waves as they roll in, crest, and break. He looks like a faded photograph, browning, curled, and distorted.

  “I didn’t lie to you. I want you to know that. Not that it matters. But I didn’t lie to you,” he says.

  “You also didn’t see the truth.”

  “That the head of security . . . what’d you say his name was?”

  “Finnerich.”

  “That Finnerich made his deal with Piotr Malek before Malek called me? No. I didn’t.”

  “You got me to take care of your problems. Wilson, Watts, and Malek.”

  “We made a deal. You agreed to it.”

  “You could’ve saved me a lot of time if you knew the details of the goddamn job you took on. You sold yourself as the greatest fence in America. You’re not even close. You debase the profession.”

  Ezra Loeb takes off his glasses, lets out a breath, slow and heavy, and sinks more into the bench.

  “Have I made an enemy of you?”

  “We’re not friends.”

  He wipes his glasses with his shirt, sets them back on his nose. The waves continue their slow roll from the west, an infinite, inexorable churn.

  He makes a gesture with his hand, like he’s wiping a chalkboard. “I’m quitting. Releasing my stable. I’ve had my time. I’ll disappear now.”

  “Good decision.”

  He sits still and doesn’t respond for a long time.

  Finally, he says, “I know I would’ve heard of you. You haven’t always gone by the name Copeland.”

  “No. For a long time, for most of my life, no one called me that.”

  “Then, please, tell me. What did they call you?”

  Summer on the island and school is out. Tourists crowd the boardwalks like pigeons around breadcrumbs. They gawk at the window displays, gorge on fudge, take horse-drawn carriage tours of Fort Mackinac and the Grand Hotel.

  The spirit around here is the opposite of when I did my time in Michigan. Sunshine and flowers as opposed to gray sky and endless snow. A butterfly out of a chrysalis. The locals look tired but happy, their pockets stuffed with tourism money like bears with food before winter hibernation.

  The board in the window frame I replaced holds. I sit on the steps leading to the kitchen door, hot coffee next to me, skimming the Detroit Free Press when Meghan approaches.

  “You left,” she says.

  “Work,” I answer.

  Meghan dislodges a loose bit of pavement in the driveway with her toe. “You back for long?”

  “No. Not for long.”

  “Who’s she?” Meghan looks over my shoulder at Peyton, who exits the door and sits down next to me, careful not to capsize my coffee cup.

  “Peyton,” she says. “You must be Meghan.”

  Meghan snorts. “You remembered my name?”

  “You’re memorable.”

  “You two married or something?”

  It’s Peyton’s turn to snort. “No. We work together. He’s my boss. He’s showing me the ropes.”

  “What do you guys do?”

  I turn my eyes to the window frame, then back to the awkward girl on the driveway. “Repair things.”

  “Also demolition,” Peyton adds, and smiles at me.

  “Ohhhhkay,” Meghan says. “I gotta go to the store for my mom. She has stomach problems or something. I have a list. You guys need anything?”

  “We’re good, Meghan. It was good to see you.”

  She raises her palm to shield her eyes and squints at me, checking whether or not I was making fun of her.

  “Good to see you, too,” she offers skeptically.

  Mr. Laughlin expects company.

  He has light bouncy music playing through speakers in his living room, dining room, and kitchen. He dances a little soft-shoe as he carries a bottle of cheap vodka to a mixing bowl and upends it. He opens a cherry Jell-O packet, whisks in its contents, and pours the concoction into a pair of rubber ice trays. Vodka Jell-O shots, the kids call them. A good way to get drunk without knowing how fast you got there.

  He carefully sets the trays in his freezer and looks around, then claps his hands together, assessing the room. Perfect. The doorbell chimes and he looks at his watch and furrows his brow.

  A seventeen-year-old girl wearing a tight strapless top and short-shorts stands on the porch. Mr. Laughlin flashes his lupine smile. “You’re early, Pippa.”

  The girl returns his smile, beaming innocently. “You said seven.”

  “I did?” Mr. Laughlin asks and chuckles. “Oh, yes, maybe I did, come in, come in,” he coos.

  She takes a timid step inside his home and looks around. “Aren’t there more kids coming?”

  “Oh, yes, a few of my summer students. You’ll like them. Their parents work at the Grand Hotel just from May to August. Have a seat, have a seat.” He gestures at the sofa and Pippa complies. Her shorts ride all the way up her thighs and she tugs at the tops of them but they don’t pull down any lower.

  Mr. Laughlin searches through a cabinet, then turns, holding up a DVD. “Have you seen The Dreamers? A Bertolucci
masterpiece.”

  Pippa shakes her head.

  “Of course not, tsk, tsk,” Mr. Laughlin chides. “Your parents probably frown on mature films.”

  “They don’t let me watch HBO by myself.”

  “This is the problem. I tell my students to expand the width of their knowledge, but how can they do so when their parents are constantly thwarting their ambition?”

  Pippa can’t think of a response, so just shakes her head.

  “Anyway, give me one minute and I will find something for us to munch.”

  Mr. Laughlin skips toward his kitchen. It’s easy, so easy, that skip says. He only has to put a few thoughts in these virgin heads and they practically—

  He jerks to a stop when he sees Peyton pointing a gun at his forehead.

  “Shhhh,” she says, and puts a finger to her lips.

  He holds his breath.

  I step in behind Mr. Laughlin and whisper in his ear, “Tell the girl she has to go. You’re sorry, but you feel sick all of a sudden.”

  He nods and takes a step back but I block him.

  “Tell her from here.”

  “Pippa?” he calls out. “I . . . uh . . . you have to go. I feel sick all of a sudden.”

  I can hear her stir on the couch and stand. Her voice sounds concerned. “Oh, okay. Can I—”

  “Tell her to just go. Do it now,” I whisper.

  “Just go, Pippa!”

  Moments later, the door opens and closes, and Pippa’s footfalls echo off the wooden porch and then recede. The front gate swings open and then slams closed.

  Mr. Laughlin cranes his neck to look at me and then at Peyton.

  “I don’t have much money here.”

  “We’re not here to rob you.”

  “I don’t . . . I don’t understand.”

  “How many girls, Mr. Laughlin?”