The Void Protocol

by F. Paul Wilson

  Montero had been looking at him and didn’t see the big box truck backing out of a driveway. He slammed on the brakes and the Volvo screeched and fishtailed to a stop. The driver looked at them with a WDF look, as in what da fuck?

  “Get out!” Rick said.

  “What?”

  “Get out. I’m gonna drive.”

  “No-no-no. It’s okay. I promise. Not far now.”

  Rick paused, then relented. He pointed at the receding truck. “Stay behind him.” After a few hundred yards, he said, “What did you say about dumping him in the Atlantic?”

  “Vinny owns a scrap yard and a trawler, in case you didn’t know.”

  “Didn’t. And you know about this how?”

  “We’ve had Ellis’s phone hacked for a while, and added Vinny’s capo’s just recently.”

  “How’d you manage that? Oh, Kevin Hudson, right?”

  Stahlman liked to hire ex-hackers for his IT matters. He’d had a fellow named Russ Tuit for a while, but he’d left to work for the NRO, of all places. Before leaving he’d recommended Kevin. Rick had checked him out and he passed muster, so now he was Stahlman’s go-to guy for IT.

  “Right. Kevin’s amazing. Anyway, Donato and his crew are talking about having the croupier and the guy who suspended the table limit keep Ellis company so he doesn’t get lonely while he sleeps with the fishes. Ellis thinks he’s meeting them at the scrap yard for his payout.”

  “He as dumb as he sounds?”

  Montero smiled. “Don’t be too hard on him. He’s an astounding pool player but has a weakness for cards. He’s played Donato’s games before—poker and blackjack usually—and he’s won and lost with never a problem collecting when he won. Last night was the first time he’d ever tried roulette and he thinks he was astoundingly lucky.”

  “But you say he cheated. How?”

  Montero chewed his lip. “I guess I can tell you what we think. We still need to prove it.”

  All this beating around the bush.

  “For Chrissake, spill, will you?”

  “All right, all right. We think he’s telekinetic.”

  That took a bit of digesting. “You mean he moves things with his mind?”

  “Or brain.”

  “Same difference.”

  “Not even close. But yes, he can move things without touching them. That’s how he can run a pool table every time he picks up a cue.”

  “And can hit a roulette number three times in a row.”

  “Exactly. I’m thinking he visualizes a pool ball dropping into a certain pocket or a roulette ball dropping into a certain slot, and it just … does.”

  “And now he’s visualizing this middle-level mob boss just handing over four hundred K?”

  “Yeah. I was hoping we could head him off at the pass but he got a head start.”

  The neighborhood around Ralph Avenue had deteriorated from redbrick residential to car-parts-and-repairs commercial.

  “What’s he driving?”

  “A red Kia Forte.” He pointed to a train trestle over the road. “Okay, once we pass that we’re officially in Canarsie. Look for Preston Court.”

  Rick spotted it two blocks in. Montero hung a right onto an even crummier street with rusting warehouses, scrap yards, and bumpy, crumbling pavement that showed more dirt than asphalt. He pointed to a scrap yard on the left as they passed.

  “That’s Donato’s.”

  Rick saw Preston Salvage on a canted sign slung over a gap in the corrugated steel wall that served as an entrance.

  “Not ‘Vinnie’s Vehicles’ or ‘Donato’s Discards’?”

  “Told you: He’s low profile. Doesn’t want his name out there. He came up during the days of the Dapper Don; he saw how Gotti became a lightning rod for the feds.”

  “Think he’s there now?”

  “Doubt it. If his guys are going to disappear Ellis, he’ll want to be visible elsewhere—like having dinner at Peter Luger or the like.”

  “All right. Turn around. I’ll go in and see what’s happening.”

  “What about me?”

  “Park across the entrance so nobody gets in or out, and be ready to drive.”

  “What are you planning?”

  Rick had no idea.

  “Gotta play it by ear. What’s this Ellis look like?”

  “A weasel. Sort of Anthony Weinerish.”

  “Got it.”

  Montero stopped the car.

  “You carrying?” he said as Rick got out.

  Rick grinned. “You just said ‘carrying.’ Don’t say ‘carrying.’ ”

  “Why not?”

  “Just don’t.”

  “Okay, are you armed?”

  “Sort of.”

  “With what?”

  “Guns, knives, bludgeons, chainsaws. The usual. Why’re you asking?”

  “I just don’t want to have to call 911 for you.”

  “I appreciate the thought.”

  Rick stepped over the chain strung low across the entrance. Straight ahead sat a two-story clapboard structure—looked like a garage on the ground floor with outside stairs leading up to an office on the second level. Two cars parked in front, neither a red Kia. Maybe in back …

  He walked around to the left and saw piles of flattened junkers clustered around a crusher behind the building. In front of the crusher a guy was siphoning gas from the tank of a red Kia into an even redder gas can. That gave Rick a second’s pause; then he realized if they were planning to crush Ellis in his Kia, a full gas tank could be dangerous.

  The garage had double overhead doors, one of which was up. A quick glance revealed three men of various sizes, all duct-taped, hand, foot, and mouth. One of them, a guy with hair so gelled it probably reflected X-rays, had a definite Weineroid look.

  Let me guess: Ellis Reise plus the croupier and the reckless pit boss.

  Rick pulled a knife from his front pocket but kept it hidden in his fist with the four-inch blade folded. All it would take to free it was a flick of his thumb.

  He poked his head inside for a quick look around. No one else besides the three bound men.

  Nice. Maybe this would work out with no hassles. Spirit Reise away with no one the wiser until later.

  “Who the fuck are you?” said a voice behind him.

  Shit.

  Rick turned to see the guy from outside, standing there with a plastic gas can in each hand.

  “Hey, I just stopped by to see about getting a little cash for my old junker but I see you’re in the middle of something so I’ll just—”

  “You’ll just nothin’, asshole.” He dropped the cans and grabbed a tire iron. “Sit down over there with the others.”

  “Now wait a minute,” Rick said, slipping the knife into a back pocket. He was going to need both hands. “I didn’t see nothin’ so I’m just gonna ease on down the road and—”

  He’d started moving toward the door as he spoke, but the gas guy had a different idea. He swung the tire iron at Rick’s head. Rick ducked, came up as it whistled by above him, grabbed the arm with the iron and yanked it down while bringing up his knee. Arm and knee connected at the elbow, which bent backward, a direction not allowed in its design, and broke with a grisly snap.

  The gas man turned dead white, his tire iron hit the floor, followed immediately by his knees. Clutching his elbow he bent over as if praying toward Mecca and blew dinner chunks all over the floor.

  Yeah, that had to hurt.

  Rick flipped open his knife and cut the duct tape on Ellis Reise’s wrists and ankles.

  Reise ripped the tape off his mouth. “I don’t know who you are,” he said in a voice that could have passed for Joe Pesci’s, “but am I glad you came along. Just watch out for Joey.”

  “Joey?” Rick looked around. He’d expected at least two, considering the two cars out front. “Where would he be?”

  “He went upstairs to the office.”

  Sure enough, footsteps started pounding down the outside stairw
ay. Rick motioned for Reise to be quiet, then picked up the tire iron and stood by the doorway. Now, if Joey could just pass the windows on the side of the garage without looking in …

  “Tone?” The cry was tinged with alarm. “Tony!”

  Joey had looked, damn him. Rick bent into a crouch and readied the tire iron in a two-handed grip.

  When Joey entered, pistol in hand, Rick swung for the fences, catching a knee in mid-stride. As Joey’s eyes bulged with pain, Rick struck again, this time at the gun arm. The radius gave off a loud crack. Joey and his semi-auto clattered to the floor. Rick booted the pistol out the door.

  Reise’s eyes were bulging almost as much as Joey’s. “Who are you, man?”

  Rick didn’t know how to answer that so he didn’t.

  Reise continued to stare. “You are fucking scary, you know that, right?”

  Rick shrugged. Probably seemed that way as far as the average person was concerned. He’d been trained to put the hurt on without hesitation when necessary, and not to apply more than necessary. Even though people didn’t consciously perceive the lack of hesitation, they sensed it, and that was what scared them.

  “Get their phones,” he told Reise. “And if Tony there has a gun, get that too.”

  Tony had a revolver and an iPhone, but was still in too much agony to offer resistance or even speak.

  Not so Joey. As he was relieved of his phone, he managed, “You’re a dead man, Reise. Dead man walking.”

  “Not so tough now, are you?” Reise said, standing over him. “ ‘Reise’s pieces’? ‘Reise is gonna be in pieces’? Where are the wisecracks now, asshole?”

  He kicked Joey in the ribs.

  None too gently, Rick grabbed Ellis’s arm and yanked him away. “Don’t do that. Don’t ever do that.”

  “What?”

  “Beat on a guy who’s out of the fight.”

  “He was mouthing off.”

  “Do not do that. It’s low rent.”

  He spotted Joey giving him a strange look.

  Reise turned back to the mobsters and yelled, “Where’s my money? You owe me 428,750 dollars and I want every fucking penny!”

  That did it. Wishing he’d left the tape over Reise’s mouth, Rick threw the phones and revolver out the door. How stupid was this guy?

  “You kidding me?” he said, this time grabbing Reise by his scrawny neck and propelling him out into the night. “Forget about your money. You won’t be seeing a penny of it. You’re lucky you’re alive.”

  “Hey! Where we going?”

  He steered him toward the entrance where Montero’s Volvo idled. “Somebody wants to talk to you.”

  “Who?”

  “A guy who knows more about you than you know about yourself.”

  “What?” He started struggling. “I ain’t getting in no car with somebody I don’t know!”

  Rick towered over Reise who weighed next to nothing. Tightening his grip on his neck, he lifted the scrawny man off his feet and carried him kicking and twisting to the Volvo where he threw him into the front seat.

  “This man is going to drive you someplace safe and you’ll listen to what he has to say along the way.”

  “No fucking way!”

  “There’s still a whole roll of duct tape back there,” Rick said. “Only take me a few seconds to go get it. Your choice. Because one way or another you’re going with him. We clear?”

  That took some of the starch out of Reise. “My car,” he whined.

  Damn.

  “I’ll bring it. You sit and listen.” Rick leaned over and looked at Montero. “The warehouse?”

  Montero nodded. “Yep.”

  “Meet you there.”

  He watched the Volvo zoom off, wondering if Ellis would survive the drive to Long Island City, then headed back to refill the Kia’s tank. As he retrieved the gas cans, he found the garage pretty much as he’d left it. Tony was now lying on his side next to his vomit, still clutching his elbow. Joey had risen to a sitting position and, with his good arm, was half crawling toward his gun and phone outside.

  Ignoring Joey’s howls of pain, Rick dragged him back to Tony and zip-tied their good arms together.

  “You seem like a stand-up guy,” Joey said. “How come you’re involved with that little shit?”

  “I’m not. Guy I work for is.”

  “We’re gonna have to come after you, y’know.”

  “Not necessarily. Tell Mister Donato that Reise’s debt is settled. He doesn’t owe him anything.”

  “But me and Tony owe you,” Joey said. “Look at his elbow. And you broke my arm. We owe you big time.”

  “I didn’t come here for a fight,” Rick said. “If your pal hadn’t started swinging a tire iron and you hadn’t been pointing a gun, things’d be different right now.”

  “Still …”

  Rick moved closer and stood over him, giving him a hard look. “Hey, you’re not going to become a problem now, are you? I’ve learned the hard way that unsolved problems have a habit of biting you in the ass when you least expect it, so I don’t like to leave them lying around. Get what I’m saying? Now, are you going to be a problem?”

  Joey looked away. “Guess not.”

  “Good.”

  Rick took a quick look around. The two other guys were still bound and gagged. He considered cutting them free, then decided against it. They might try to take him down to get back in good with their boss.

  What we have here, he thought, is what you might call a family matter. Best not to interfere.

  He shook his head. The things Stahlman asked him to do at times …

  Good thing he paid well.

  As he replaced the Kia’s gas, he thought about Ellis Reise and his supposed ability to move things with his mind. He’d leave it a supposed ability until he’d seen it up close and personal. If true, it would give him a great excuse to call Laura and get her involved.

  Not so long ago he’d figured he wouldn’t ever again need an excuse to call her, but things between them hadn’t gone the way he’d hoped. Not even close.

  2

  QUEENS, NEW YORK

  Rick remembered the address of Stahlman’s warehouse—a quarter mil square feet spread over two floors in one of the older buildings squatting in the industrial zone between Queens Boulevard and the LIE. Traffic was light and he made good time. Some guy on the radio was talking about how we’d just passed the autumnal equinox, that day every September when the nights started running longer than the days. It meant summer was over and fall was taking charge.

  He parked the Kia at the end of the block and walked to a steel door under a heavy-duty roll-up security shutter that served as the entrance.

  He liked how the ground-floor windows were set high, a good ten feet off the pavement. Made it easier to keep out the rats—human and otherwise. He knocked, waved at the security camera, and was buzzed in. Adão Guerra loomed behind a desk that looked too small for him. Rick had backgrounded him for a security position earlier in the year.

  “Hey, Mister Hayden,” he said, extending his hand. “The doc said you’d be coming soon.”

  “The boss here?”

  Guerra nodded and pointed. “With the doc and the new guy right through there.”

  Another buzz and the door to Rick’s right unlatched, allowing him into a huge rectangular space running four hundred feet on its long side, with fifteen-foot ceilings. The floor had been divided into curtained areas of varying sizes. Dead ahead, Stahlman, Montero, and Reise stood staring at a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall.

  “You mean you’ve been spying on me?” Reise was saying as Rick approached.

  Clayton Stahlman spotted him and motioned him aside.

  “Mister Hayden,” he said, offering his hand. “I hardly see you anymore. I miss our talks.”

  Always Mister Hayden, never Rick. And because they’d had little face-to-face contact since Stahlman’s cure, Rick still experienced a pop of surprise at his healthy appearance. The man
who’d hired him years ago had been a frail, feeble, moon-faced ghost, sucking oxygen twenty-four/seven as he dwindled away in his wheelchair. Although his barrel chest remained as a reminder of the pulmonary fibrosis that had almost laid him low, he now looked younger than his late sixties, a picture of senior citizen health.

  “So do I,” Rick lied. He liked Stahlman, but wasn’t looking to be buddies. He gestured toward Reise. “This on the up-and-up?”

  “His telekinesis? I believe so. Come over here and listen in on Doctor Montero explaining it to him.”

  “… and I’m betting you could run any table any time you want,” Montero was saying.

  Reise gave a self-satisfied shrug. “Yeah, I suppose.” He spotted Rick. “You!” He jabbed an index finger toward Montero. “You put me in a car with a fucking maniac!”

  “Well …”

  “I almost got killed.”

  “Better than definitely killed if you’d stayed at the scrap yard.”

  Reise didn’t seem to have a response to that.

  “Let’s stay on topic, shall we?” Montero said. “You could run a pool table every time, but you don’t. Why not?”

  Reise gave him a dumb question look. “I’d never get anyone to bet against me if I didn’t miss once in a while!”

  Stahlman leaned close to Rick and spoke in a low voice. “We were tipped to Ellis, so—”

  “Tipped how?”

  “It’s complicated. You’ll meet her soon.”

  Everything was complicated. And who was “her”?

  “Anyway,” Stahlman went on, “over the summer we set up a camera above his favorite pool table, supposedly as a promotion for the camera-and-playback system. At the end of a game, players could replay their best shots on the connected TV. The owner was cool with the free installation and the players loved the overhead shots. They felt like they were in a televised match.”

  Montero said to Reise, “But your pool hustles were just to finance your poker, right?”

  A smile. “Cards are where it’s at.”

  “But while you were hustling your fellow players and having fun taking their money,” Montero said, “we had a computer analyzing all the shots on the table, and that’s how we found you.”

  The smile faded. “What’s that mean? ‘Found’ me?”