Pretty Like an Ugly Girl (Baer Creighton Book 3)

by Clayton Lindemuth

  He’d taught Cephus better than that. He’d taught him to always be thinking ahead, anticipating surprises. Life was hard enough dealing with the known threats. You also had to know where to look for the unknowns.

  As a boy Cephus displayed abundant charm and cunning. Loyalty. When it became apparent Cephus was a thousand-fold superior to his older brother Finch, like an archer bent for distance, Luke had taken special pains to aim Cephus high. Make him perfect. That’s what you do with an Albert Einstein. A Mozart.

  So how the hell did he take a taped girl out for a quick bullet to the head and manage to get shot in the face? The girl couldn’t have done it. Cephus didn’t shoot himself.

  An angel of God didn’t do it.

  The only way it happened was treachery. Someone in blind, ready to kill in an instant, didn’t give him a fighting chance.

  Luke wondered what sort of man had stayed in that yellow tent. Probably some darkie wandering across the state, left from LA, looking for New York. Some spic. A Zionist. It had to be one of the inferior races—a test from God, to prepare him for the coming wars.

  Another thought lurked in the corner of his mind, just out of the light. It had been there for years, and Luke had never brought it forward ... Absalom. The son who excelled his father, King David, in every way, and turned on him ...

  Had Cephus’s murder spared Luke a future agony? Was it conceivable? Could God be somehow protecting Luke?

  Luke exited the highway and a half mile farther, turned on his long driveway. He saw his log cabin framed against the rugged hills behind it. What would he say to Caroline?

  How do you make it sound natural? Something as outrageous as the glorious Cephus being dead.

  Butchers know the lifetime odds of a band saw taking a finger are pretty high. Men of every physical occupation know someday it’ll be the back, the joints, the lungs, or, if the work is just miserable, the liver. He’d long before made his peace. Every occupation enjoyed its hazards, and his work carried a higher kind.

  But he’d always assumed it would be Finch.

  How the hell had it been Cephus? How could a young man as gifted as Cephus be surprised by a nobody, head shot in a field, with almost nothing around him? What kind of lapsed thinking allowed an accident like that?

  Luke pulled up to the garage and sat in the driveway with the engine running.

  Finch, driving Luke’s truck, pulled to his right and remained in the cab.

  From the side, Luke saw the log cabin’s front door open. Caroline ran out wearing her yoga outfit, barefoot on the stone sidewalk, her face drawn tight. She floated across the gravel and syllables came from her mouth. They formed no words but spoke grief. Luke opened the truck door. Caroline must have looked out the second-floor window.

  She climbed over the rear wheel and threw her leg over the bed wall. She went to her knees, took Cephus’s hand, but turned away from the cold stare of his face, with the extra hole in his forehead.

  Luke went into the house and used the bathroom. Splashed water into his eyes. Filled a mug with coffee and heavy cream, drank a long pull of the stale elixir, then returned to the truck. He said, “I found him like that. He was out doing work, and someone left him, out in the open.”

  “Why?”

  Luke shook his head.

  Kneeling on the rough bed liner, Caroline rested her head on Cephus’s chest, draped her hands over his shoulders, and wept.

  Luke removed his jacket and gave it to Caroline. She lifted herself and put her arms through the sleeves.

  “Don’t you worry,” Luke said. “I’m going to track down whoever did it.”

  Caroline sat in the bed. She held Cephus’s hand. “He’s so cold.”

  “It must have happened last night.”

  “Was it a Mexican?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We should kill all of them. Bring them up here one by one, let them see what they’ve done. Kill them with a knife, so they die slow. I want those animals to know why.”

  “Suspect it was a darkie, hiding. I don’t know who, but I will, and he’s going to suffer. I promise you that.”

  “No,” Caroline said. “Bring him to me. You chose the path of this family. You owe me that.”

  Luke nodded. Looked off.

  “It’ll be a few days. But I will.” Luke called to Finch, still sitting in the other truck cab. “Open the garage door.”

  He took Caroline’s hand as she climbed over the tailgate, then carried her to the house like he did on their wedding day, and set her down inside.

  “We’ll have a service this afternoon. I’m going to take him to the shelter.”

  “The bone room?”

  “That’s what it’s for.”

  “I—”

  “Never expected to use it this soon.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll be back for you in a bit. Don’t come up on your own. We put out new hazards. Cephus ... He was good at that.”

  She nodded, and Luke turned away.

  He stopped. Looked back. “Call Pastor Sowell. I want to send my boy right. You understand?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Wayman found Asger Erickson in the elevator, his foot holding the door open. As he’d told Claudia, Asger was more than a bodyguard. The beefy blond Norseman was skilled in martial arts and held an MBA from Brigham Young.

  “Come on,” he said. Back at his office, Wayman prepared a cup of coffee in a Keurig machine.

  He sipped, noticed the delicate scent of Claudia on his hand. Smiled inwardly. Business was good. Profit was astronomical. He loved where he lived. What he wore. What he ate. Everything was perfect. And now, this one little super nova of emotion. This curiosity.

  He held out his mug. “Coffee?”

  “No thank you, sir.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Last night’s client—Mister Naganori. He’s still at it.”

  Wayman blinked. “Did she give him a problem?”

  “No. He wanted it to be slow, but she’s taking more time than he thought. I asked if he needed assistance—”

  “You shouldn’t have done that. Not this guy.”

  The client was a Japanese bond trader worth a couple billion. He would resent the implication he didn’t know how to kill a woman. Respect, appearances, meant everything. And a billion dollars made the relationship worth preserving.

  But also worth renegotiating.

  “Where do things stand?”

  “I left him about forty minutes ago. He’s aware the room was supposed to have been vacated by four a.m. He said he would address you about my behavior.”

  “Yeah. Wait here a minute.”

  Wayman returned to his room, pulled on jeans and a white t-shirt. Slipped boots over bare feet and tucked a .38 at his back.

  “Come on.”

  Asger followed to the elevator. They rode in silence. Exited on the sixth floor.

  “Thirteen,” Asger said.

  Wayman hesitated before knocking. The room was sound proof, but he thought he heard something. A woman, maybe. He rapped. The door did not open. He stepped back. Asger unlocked it with an old-fashioned metal key.

  The gray-haired billionaire sat naked in a plush leather chair, his body streaked in blood. He looked up, as if roused from sleep. Smiled with the side of his mouth.

  Wayman looked at the bed. The girl’s arms and feet were bound to the bed posts. Long slices opened her body, here and there, random. A gash split her thigh. Another exposed white nubs of rib. One breast removed. Her face was battered and for a split second, Wayman felt something for her: he was glad she was gone.

  “You were supposed to be out of here by four. My people have a schedule. It’s hard to sanitize a room, and it’s time-sensitive. It’s why these things were agreed upon before your visit.”

  The Japanese man nodded.

  “You have not followed our agreement. With respect, we must renegotiate.”

  The man blinked. Nodded almost imperceptibly.

/>   “Another fifty.”

  Again the same nod.

  The girl coughed. Wayman spun. Her lungs rattled like they were soaked in blood. She moaned. He closed his eyes and opened them before turning back to the man.

  Wayman’s cell phone vibrated. He looked at it. Luke.

  “Cut deeper,” Wayman said to Naganori, and left the room.

  In the hall with the door closed behind him he answered, “Yeah.”

  “Can I get a sitrep?”

  “All clear, here,” Wayman said.

  “Good. Be safe. See you tonight. Oh, and that thing we talked about. It’s now.”

  Wayman ended the call. He turned. “Open the door.”

  Asger opened it. Wayman pushed inside. The man still sat on the chair.

  “Change of situation. If you want to finish her, do it right now.”

  “We already renegotiated.”

  “Fair enough.” Wayman walked to the end table beside Naganori, lifted a knife with a six-inch blade, and drove it into the girl’s heart. He turned to Asger. “Escort Mister Naganori to his changing room, then the airport. Plan B.”

  Wayman finished the coffee he’d made earlier, went into his apartment, and took a quick shower.

  The phone call from Luke hadn’t meant the end was nigh. But it was the first time either Wayman or Luke had made the coded call. Reflecting on his response, Wayman might have over-reacted.

  When Luke called, he wasn’t asking for a situation report, but was using code to give one. Things on his end were fishy. The call signaled a low-level alert. Something unknown was wrong, and there might be a risk to the whole operation. Bottom line: keep your eyes open and initiate no new risk.

  What about when you’re in the middle of risk?

  Finish it and hunker down.

  Easier said than done when you’ve got a mangled corpse to deal with.

  Plus, he had another guest due to arrive in six hours, this one from Florida. The man was probably boarding his flight right now.

  “Shit.”

  Although Wayman used no written contracts, he was explicit with each client. The rules were absolute, and due to the risk he took for his clients, the rules could change at a moment’s notice. If he gave the abort call, turn around, don’t call us, we’ll call you. Your date will be rescheduled or your money returned.

  The man due this evening had given Wayman business worth a cool half million over the last three years—not counting several clients Wayman suspected the man had referred. He was bona-fide serial. Alienating him at this late moment ...

  Wayman’s instincts clashed. He avoided all chance-based risk. If it felt like gambling, Wayman was out. He took calculated risks, always where the payoff was extraordinary and the risk of something going wrong was tiny and mitigated.

  However ... if it had been Wayman who’d paid a hundred grand, boarded an airplane, and was this moment lusting about satisfying his deepest need, he’d be pissed if he got the abort phone call.

  Along with Wayman’s deep aversion to risk-taking, his second most deeply held instinct was to take care of the customer. It wasn’t some smarmy bullshit like the customer was always right. His customers got off on murdering kids. They weren’t always right. They were sociopaths. Wayman took care of them because it made the best business sense.

  Confidence mattered.

  His clients had to be able to trust he’d disappear the evidence. They knew they were placing their lives in Wayman’s hands. Some men were reckless enough to do so without much thought, but most were not. Most of his clients would never have the guts to act out their lusts without Wayman’s careful protection, and his protection included not just who he was, but the soundness of his entire operation. Every detail had to inspire confidence. Men who killed in Wayman’s habitat had to have absolute faith their actions would never come back on them, and nothing was more harmful to Wayman being held in ultimate esteem than having to cancel an appointment. It was like saying, I don’t have my shit together. Something surprised me. I wasn’t ready for it.

  And given how rapidly word had spread when he’d added the last item to the menu, Wayman had little doubt that if he canceled the evening’s appointment with the man from Florida, other clients would desert him as well.

  Despite his warring instincts, the business demanded he carry on.

  Wayman picked up his cell phone and powered the screen. Should he call Luke and find out what the hell was up?

  No. He’d wait. The second part of the call meant not only was Luke coming personally this evening with the load, but the plans they’d discussed for Finch were under way.

  That was good. Because he had a room full of blood that needed cleaned.

  But that meant Cephus was sitting this one out. Had the old man finally decided to let him open up his own shop?

  The computer desktop finally came to life. He opened a video program, clicked the link Room 13, and his second monitor opened a window with four camera feeds showing the girl Wayman had stabbed, the chair—where minutes ago, Naganori sat naked—and the bathroom where Wayman had washed his prints from the knife.

  It was Naganori’s first time with Wayman, and his only security video of him. At a minimum, Wayman had to delete the final act. Would the video hold coercive value with just the old man torturing the girl? Enough to keep?

  Wayman decided to keep it. He opened the editing function, rolled back the time bar and found his first entry into the room. He deleted everything after that point.

  He backed up the file to his external hard disk, then saved it again to a micro SD card, wrote Naganori on it, and unlocked his desk drawer. He withdrew a nylon wallet filled with plastic sleeves, each holding three slots. He flipped to the second to last and pushed the SD card into the slot.

  Five openings remained. He’d need a new wallet soon.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Two hours later, Luke Graves was back at the cabin, dressed and ready for the makeshift service. He’d taken Cephus to the ossuary and prepared him best he could, which amounted to wiping the blood off his face and cleaning the hair that remained on the back of his head.

  His brain had worked partly out the hole. The bullet had blasted a lot of it through the back, and what remained was pulverized. It had congealed with blood over night, but vibration in the truck bed had worked some loose, and when Luke moved Cephus to the trailer hitched to his four-wheeler, a clump fell out of his skull.

  Luke thought of getting a shovel, then picked it up with his hand. He placed the brain matter beside Cephus’s head, and while he thought about stuffing it back inside the skull, he also wondered which part of Cephus—if it worked that way—he’d just touched.

  Was it his wit? The part that gave him the perfect smart-ass rejoinder? The part that told him when to wink at a girl? The part that made him loyal?

  It occurred to Luke there wasn’t a single thing about his son that wasn’t good.

  Luke held his bloody hand up, studied it, and then pushed it aloft, palm skyward, for God to see what innocent blood looked like.

  “There will be weeping, and gnashing of teeth,” he said.

  He squeezed his eyes tight. Wiped his bloody hand in the grass, then hauled his son to the shelter, cleaned him, and placed him in the ossuary.

  He returned to the house, put on black jeans, black boots, and a black overcoat.

  Finch, who hadn’t helped and had seemed lost in soul searching, had stayed at the house. He hadn’t changed clothes because, having moved to a Flagstaff apartment, he no longer kept anything at the house.

  While Caroline was upstairs in a daze, preparing herself, Luke joined Finch on the sofa.

  “Give any thought to what I said? About your role in the business going forward?”

  Finch was quiet.

  Luke wondered if he could trust a word his son said, if he had to give the first syllable so much care.

  “I have,” Finch said. “I’ve thought about what this family does, not just the first b
usiness, the, uh, meat business. But the second. Helping the young ones from down south find their way to opportunity. I ... I thought about what this family believes. About the future, and the race wars to come. And I think I know why I had such a problem with it in the past. I don’t know where I got the idea, but I just never felt like I was as good as Wayman at anything. And it didn’t take long until Cephus was showing me up. And I hid from it. That’s what I think all my troubles have been. I’m not good enough to be part of all this, and that’s why I never wanted to be.”

  Luke nodded, seeing how maybe Finch had a point. When he was a baby they wondered if someone had dropped him on his head—a babysitter or something, when no one was around. Finch never could think anything through. Never see what mattered. Couldn’t add one truth to another. And when Cephus showed such promise early on ... Luke could understand how Finch would feel inferior.

  It was true. The first thing Finch said in a long while that made any sense.

  “That don’t let any man off the hook, though,” Luke said. “We’re all responsible for who we are. What we choose to become.”

  “I’m not disagreeing. I’m just saying I think I know why I became what I am. Because if I just told you, Dad, I’ve seen the light, you’d think I was full of shit. I wanted you to know I’ve put some real thought into it.”

  Luke began to nod. “Okay, yeah. So ...?”

  “Well, Dad ...”

  Smiling, Luke stood and began to reach for Finch.

  “This isn’t what I want to do with my life. I don’t want this. It’s fine for you and Wayman, and I’m sure Mom is happy with the whole business. But I don’t want to be a part of it anymore.”

  Luke halted.

  Finch stood. He tucked his hands in his pockets.

  Luke opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked out the picture window.

  Finch didn’t turn.

  “The pastor’s here,” Luke said.

  Pastor Sowell drove a Hyundai Sonata that made Luke wince every time he saw it. The car was old and worn out and ... made by slopes. Luke faced Finch. Clenched his teeth and smiled. “Well, you’ve made up your mind.”