by Mark Dawson
Milton was too experienced to betray even the slightest hint of recognition or surprise, and dropped down to tie a shoelace as Rhodes walked right past him. Milton continued and then paused at the crossing at the corner of 234th Street. He looked back and saw that Rhodes had turned left onto Laurelton Parkway. He was going home.
Milton did not want to turn around and follow him. That would be too obvious, and a cop ought to be experienced enough to notice someone changing direction and following, especially on a quiet road early in the morning. Milton remembered the geography of the area and knew that he would be able to follow 234th Street to the north and then take 133rd so that he came onto Laurelton ahead of Rhodes. He walked quickly, turning right at a beauty supply store and then right again onto 133rd Road. He approached the rear of the row of houses that he had seen before. There was a line of garages, a series of cars parked with their ends poking out into the road, and a dug-out path that led between the houses and the garages back to Laurelton. Milton followed it, his hands thrust deep in his pockets and his head down, cutting as unobtrusive and unthreatening a figure as he could manage.
Rhodes was walking toward him again. There were trees planted alongside the sidewalk and Milton was able to hide behind the trunk of an oak as the cop turned off the road and followed a line of footprints—his own, Milton guessed—across what had been a lawn in the Google photographs to a property that was adjacent to the parking lot and loading area of Merrick Farm. He went to a door, lowered the bag of groceries to the ground, opened the door, collected the groceries, and went inside.
Milton stayed where he was, out of sight of the house, and watched.
102
Milton followed the footprints across the lawn to the front door of Rhodes’s house. There was one ground-floor window to the left of the door; Milton looked in and saw the flicker of a TV. He went up to the door. There was no letter slot that he could look through, and the decorative porthole at eye level was fitted with patterned, opaque glass.
He rapped firmly on the door and then thrust his hands back into his pockets again.
He heard footsteps. A key turned in the lock and the door opened.
Rhodes stood in the doorway. “Can I help you?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” Milton said, affecting an American accent.
“Who are you?”
“My name’s Cliff. I wondered if I could talk to you for a moment.”
“I’m sorry. I’m a bit—”
“Just a moment? Please—it won’t take long.”
Milton saw the flicker of annoyance that passed across Rhodes’s face. “Okay—quickly.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about making an offer for the house over the way and I’m just trying to get a feel for the neighbourhood. Been walking around, but I figured the best thing to do would be just to ask someone who lives here.”
Milton anticipated that Rhodes would try to close the conversation down as quickly as he could, but he humoured him. “It’s a nice place,” he said. “You got a lot of workers from the airport here. You can get there in fifteen minutes on the Parkway.”
Milton readied himself, waiting for the right moment. “That was what I was worried about. Aircraft noise?”
“That’s a problem,” Rhodes conceded. “But you get so that it doesn’t bother you so much. I hardly notice it these days. Anyway—I got to get to the kitchen.”
He started to close the door. Milton took a step forward, blocking it with his right foot while simultaneously taking the pistol from out of his right pocket. He held it close to his body, hiding it from anyone who might have glanced across from the street but obvious enough so that Rhodes couldn’t miss it.
“Get inside,” Milton said.
Rhodes looked down at the pistol. “I’m a cop,” he said, his hand still on the door, still blocking the way ahead.
“No,” Milton said. “You’re not.”
Milton locked eyes with him. Rhodes tried to hold his stare, but he couldn’t help glancing down at the pistol that Milton had levelled at him. The tip of Rhodes’s tongue dabbed at dry lips and Milton saw his fists clenching and unclenching. He looked back at Milton and took a step back.
Milton came inside and, never taking his eyes off Rhodes, shut the door with his heel.
“Is anyone else here?” he asked.
“No one,” Rhodes said.
“Wife? Girlfriend?”
“No. Just me.”
Milton flicked the gun to indicate that Rhodes should go into the living room. He did as he was told. Milton followed, assessing quickly: the floor was covered with polished laminate and the walls were decorated with green-and-white striped wallpaper; there was a small dining table with four chairs in the corner, a leather couch and a widescreen TV on a stand was showing Wheel of Fortune. The room was extremely tidy; the surfaces had recently been dusted and there was no clutter or junk.
Milton stayed in the archway that connected the living room with the hall. “Close the curtains.”
The curtains were the same colour and pattern as the wall. Rhodes pulled them together. “This is a really stupid move.”
Milton pointed to the couch. “Sit.”
Milton stepped into the room now that he was confident that he couldn’t be seen from outside the house. There was a second open doorway and an open serving hatch in the wall that divided the small living room from an equally small galley kitchen. Milton took a step toward it and glanced inside. It, too, was suitably tidy: a gleaming stove, faux-marble countertops that looked clean enough to eat from; a bowl of fresh bananas and apples on the ledge of the serving hatch.
The rooms could have been found inside a show home. It was as if the house had never been lived in.
Milton turned back to Rhodes.
“This doesn’t have to be unpleasant,” Milton said. “But that’s up to you.”
“What do you want?”
“I’ve got some questions for you.”
Rhodes looked up at him. “Who are you?”
“That doesn’t matter. Where are Manny and Freddy Blanco?”
“Who?”
There were two identical cushions on the couch, one on either side of Rhodes. Milton took one of them and held it against Rhodes’s knee. He pressed the muzzle of the pistol into the upholstered softness. “Try again.”
Rhodes looked up at Milton; his face was impassive save the spastic tremble of a tic in his cheek. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
Milton pulled the trigger. The report was muffled by the cushion, but the bullet punched through the upholstery and blasted into Rhodes’s knee. He yelled out, Milton quickly covering his mouth with the cushion. He held it there until the scream had subsided to a muffled moan, and then he removed it.
“Take a moment,” Milton said. “I know that’s going to hurt.”
The colour had drained from Rhodes’s face and it looked as if he was going to vomit. “Fuck…you,” he managed to say.
Milton looked down at Rhodes’s knee. A neat hole had been sliced through the black denim and blood was running out.
Milton held the cushion against Rhodes’s left knee and pressed the pistol into it again.
“Let me make something very clear. I think there's more to you than your uniform. In fact, if I had to go out on a limb"—Milton roughly prodded Rhode's injured knee with the Beretta, eliciting a further gasp of pain—"I'd say you're a disgrace to it. Carter and Shepard—I know they're crooked. They worked for Acosta, but I don't think that's news to you. And, suddenly, they've disappeared, and I'm guessing that isn't a surprise, either. Because I think you've been working for Acosta, too—for a long time. Am I right, Jimmy?”
Rhodes looked down, his jaw set in a hard line as he tried to stifle the urge to moan from the pain.
“You don’t have to answer that,” Milton said. “I don’t care. But I do care about Manny and Freddy. I know you know who they are. I know you were outside their house thi
s morning. And I think you know where they are, too. So I’m going to ask you again. And, before you answer, think about what’s going to happen if I think you’re lying to me. Think about whether you want to be in a chair the rest of your life, because I promise that’s what’ll happen if you lie to me again.” He paused. “Where are Manny and Freddy Blanco?”
“Acosta,” he muttered between clenched teeth.
“Where?”
“The club.”
“Which club?”
“The HoneyPot. Atlantic and Grand. Upstairs.”
“What about Shepard and Carter? Did you kill them?”
He nodded.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Where are they now?”
“Don’t know. Landfill. Cremated. They’ll never find the bodies. He’s too thorough.”
“What does he want?”
Rhodes laughed thinly.
Milton waited for him to speak.
“You.”
“Why?”
“You were at their house. When…”
He tailed off, gritting his teeth against a pulse of pain.
“When they came before?” Milton finished for him.
Rhodes nodded. “His brother was there. Savio. You blinded him.”
The information meant nothing to Milton. He would have killed the man at the door just as soon as throw the boiling sugar water at him. Savio Acosta and the man whom Milton had shot, they had brought their own fates upon themselves. Milton had no sympathy for either of them.
He had no sympathy for Rhodes, either.
He, too, was the master of his own fate.
Milton had already decided what he would do with him. He had known before he had knocked on the door.
His options were limited.
He couldn’t leave him here. Even if he secured him, hog-tied and gagged him, there was too great a risk that he would be discovered before Milton had the chance to find the Blancos. And if that happened, they—and probably Milton, too—were finished.
He couldn’t contact Polanski. It had been simple enough for Milton to discern the trail that led from Rhodes back to Acosta, but he had broken the law multiple times to do that: at the very least, there was the use of the illegal tracker, threatening a police officer with a gun, breaking into his house, crippling him. Milton was not restrained by law or protocol. He wasn’t interested in whether his evidence would be admissible at trial. And, while Polanski might be able to legitimise all of Milton’s conclusions—work back from the answers and provide a route to them that was not illegal—that would take time. Manny and Freddy did not have time. If Rhodes was arrested, then Acosta would find out, and they would have a short future with an unpleasant end.
Milton was not going to let that happen.
He was not constrained by conscience. He was driven by expediency. His morals were black and white. Rhodes had brought himself into Milton’s world. He couldn’t complain about what that would mean.
He raised the pillow, pressed it against Rhodes’s head, and shot him.
103
Milton worked quickly. He located the two casings; they were on the floor, and both of them would be easy enough to find. The cushion was still over Rhodes’s face. Milton removed it. The bullet had entered his head just above his right eye. The blowback had been absorbed by the cushion, but, now that it was out of the way, a trickle of ichorous blood rolled down and collected against his brow. He frisked him, the clothes still warm from the dissipating body heat, and removed a wallet from the left jeans pocket and a set of house keys from the right. He opened the wallet and took out three credit cards in the name of James R. Rhodes.
He went through into the kitchen and took a dry dishcloth that had been left hanging over the tap. He used it to open the cupboards, working swiftly and methodically, found nothing of interest and moved back to the living room. He found some correspondence in a neat pile, all of the envelopes addressed to James Rhodes. He opened the cupboards and took down the books on the bookshelves, flipping through them to ensure that they had not been hollowed out. They were all just as they should be.
He went into the hallway, removed his boots, and climbed the stairs to the second floor. There were three bedrooms and a small family bathroom. He searched the bedrooms first. Two were empty, with no furniture or belongings. He disregarded them and went into the room that Rhodes had evidently been using. Once more, the overwhelming impression was one of transience, of a use that was only ever intended to be temporary. Still covering his fingers to ensure that he didn’t leave any prints, Milton searched. He found a well-thumbed copy of Guns and Ammo, and a collection of loose change. He opened the wardrobe and found two NYPD uniforms still wrapped in the protective sheath from the dry-cleaner’s.
There was just the bathroom left to search. There was a bottle of Xanax in the wall-mounted cabinet, the prescription denoting them as for the personal use of Rhodes, James. Milton was about to call it quits when he saw something that made him pause: one of the panels on the side of the bath was not quite flush with the frame. He knelt down and examined it. It was recessed a millimetre or two, providing an exposed surface that, when Milton leaned in close to examine it, betrayed an almost imperceptible scuff. Milton rested his covered fingertips against the corner of the panel and pushed. The panel moved, there was the click of a latch being released, and then it swung back on a hinge mounted near the floor. Milton lowered it gently to the tiles and looked into the storage space that had been revealed in the space around and beneath the tub.
He took out a case with a resin plastic body. He flipped both clasps and opened it, revealing a moulded foam interior that held a Heckler & Koch submachine gun. It was the UMP9, the 9x19mm variant of the UMP. It had the folding buttstock, the aperture rear sight and the front ring with the small vertical post, and a Picatinny rail on top of the receiver. The UMP9 had only been available for a few months, and this one looked brand new. Milton reached beneath the tub again and brought out ten boxes of ammunition, each box marked as holding fifty cartridges.
Milton put the ammo and the submachine gun to the side and reached into the hiding space again. He pulled out a cellphone and a bunch of keys in a clear plastic bag and then a second clear plastic bag that was heavy with banknotes. The final bag contained the key constituents of a bug-out kit: a small GPS reader, eight quarters, two fake passports in the name of Thomas Jessop and Dan Best, a wallet that contained a series of credit cards in the name of Thomas Jessop, and supplementary cards—a library card, health insurance cards—all of which would help Rhodes to establish a new identity.
Milton put everything back beneath the tub except for the cash, the case with the UMP9 and four boxes of the ammunition. There was a sports bag in the cupboard beneath the stairs. He unzipped it and loaded up with the things that he was taking.
He was nearly done.
He took a mop and bucket that he found in the hall cupboard, filled the bucket with water and mopped down the laminate floor in the kitchen, living room and hall.
He stood on the mat just inside the door to put on his boots, stooped to pick up the sports bag, and went outside, closing the door behind him with his sleeve over his fingers. He crossed the lawn to the street and walked over to the Fusion. He went to the back, checked that the street was clear in both directions, knelt down and reached up behind the fender. He tugged on the tracker, removed it and stood once more. He dropped the device into his pocket and walked to his bike. He put his arms through the handles of the sports bag so that he could carry it on his back, straddled the seat and started the engine.
He glanced back at the house then turned to the road. It was midday. He had things to do.
104
Milton stopped at home to deposit the bag with the things that he had taken from Rhodes’s house, but didn’t stay. He rode north to Prospect Heights, parked his bike on Classon Avenue and walked back to Atlantic. It was one of the main east–west routes through Brooklyn,
a four-lane road separated by a median that was equipped with tall street lamps and cluttered with advertisements for new tyres and mufflers from the auto shop on the other side of the road. This section of the avenue led through a run-down area of town that recalled the pictures that Milton had seen of Brooklyn in the eighties. It had escaped the tide of gentrification that was slowly washing down from Manhattan, and its building stock was in poor condition. There were wide-open spaces where buildings had been pulled down without being replaced, and other buildings that were derelict to the point that demolition would have been doing them a favour.
Milton walked the block. He saw the big ugly box that accommodated AutoZone and, opposite, a confused collection of buildings that comprised the competing Mario’s Auto Repair. Milton kept going, walking by a business that supplied restaurants and a CrossFit studio. An old gas station had been abandoned partway through refurbishment, with the structure clad in heavy-duty sheeting, although the temporary fencing had been moved aside so that a pop-up car-washing business could use the space. The walls were marked with graffitied murals and gang tags, and trash blew along the snow-covered sidewalk.
Milton reached the address that he wanted. The HoneyPot Lounge was on the first floor of a three-storey building on the corner of Atlantic and Grand. Falafel Hut was to the left and a store selling wine and spirits was to the right. Milton stopped so that he could pretend to tie his laces. It was one in the afternoon, and the club was open. The windows were glazed with tinted glass, and it limited his view inside so that all he could see were the dim outlines of furniture and streaks of neon that pulsed in time with the music. The club was accessed through a barred door to the right of the windows. The snow had been cleared away, dumped into a big drift that had gathered at the side of the road.