Winter's Rage, page 21
I shook my head. “Better not. I’ve got one last thing to take before I hit the road. Do me a favor, say goodbye to Raelynn and the kids for me. And tell them not to worry. They won’t have to spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders. It’s sorted.”
“You got it.”
We shook hands. I turned my back on him and started to walk away.
I was barely halfway back to the battered old Cadillac when I heard Raelynn calling my name.
I pretended I hadn’t heard.
I could hear her running toward me.
I stopped and turned.
“You were going to leave without saying goodbye.” It wasn’t a question.
“I was,” I said.
“Why? Why would you do such a thing?”
“I thought it was better that way.”
“Better for who? For me? Or for you?”
“For all of us.”
She shook her head, like she couldn’t quite believe I could be so dense. “All I wanted to do was thank you,” she said, and slipped one of her hands into mine. Her skin was soft and warm against the cold of my own. “I owe you that much.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” I said.
“I owe you everything,” she said. “I was hoping we’d find time for me to show my appreciation.” She reached up and placed her other hand on my cheek. It felt good. She stood on her toes and leaned closer, our lips almost touching.
It was a bad idea.
It was always a bad idea.
But for once I didn’t care. I closed the last few inches and our lips touched for a heartbeat. I felt her heat. And part of me really wanted to give in to it, just for a while. I’d forgotten what human contact felt like. Wasn’t that the very definition of loneliness?
I pulled away.
“Is there something wrong with me?” she asked. “I’m clean. I swear. And this—”
I cut her off. “It’s not you,” I started to say, knowing I couldn’t insult her with the next two words that always seemed to go with that brush-off. “Honestly,” I said instead. “But right now you’d be best served giving your love to those kids. They need you, and they need you clean. Think about them and get yourself sorted out. You don’t need a guy like me to validate you. You’re beautiful, and I suspect there’s a great person in there.” I put my hand on her heart. “All you need to know is it’s safe to let her come out. No one is going to be coming for you. Not now. Not ever again. I’m going to make the problem go away altogether. Just be strong for those kids.” It was probably the most words I’d said to her. It was almost eloquent. It certainly wasn’t the kind of speech you expected from a jarhead.
“You’re right,” she said. “I need to get off that shit, properly off it, go into a program, and maybe this is the place to do it. There’s history, with Mom and everything. But I’ve also got friends here. So maybe I can turn it around.”
“Only you can.”
“Will you be coming back?”
I shrugged. “No promises.”
“But you’ll try?”
I didn’t say no.
She waited, and in the end took my silence as the answer I meant it to be.
“That’s good enough for me,” she said.
She was still standing there when I drove away.
65
The clearing was absolutely still when I returned.
Not that I’d expected it to be a hive of activity, but I did think he’d have put up some sort of struggle. Not that he’d have been able to escape from his bonds anyway, and in these conditions no one was going to stumble upon him. Not that anyone would have been looking for him. A more reasonable fear was that the cold had finished him. Like the old saying went, dead men could tell no tales.
I clambered up the ladder, relieved to see that he was still there and that he was awake.
“You took your time,” he said. There was still no fear, no anger in his flesh. He was resigned to his fate.
“Didn’t realize I was working to a timetable.”
“I heard a car engine.”
“Did you think someone was coming to save you?”
“No.”
“You’re a smart man. I borrowed your Cadillac, hope you don’t mind.”
“Fuck you.”
“Raelynn has told me the name of the man they ripped off.”
“Bullshit she did.”
“Now all I have to do is track him down and work my way up the chain. I’ll find someone willing to talk. I understand you can’t. Professionalism and all that.”
“You’re so full of shit.” He laughed. Despite the futility of his position the man was still able to laugh. You almost had to admire him. “We took care of him before we even came here. As Dale would have said, ‘I’m Obi-Wan to your Princess.’” I looked at him, not following. “I’m your only hope.”
I shrugged. I had no reason to disbelieve him. “And you’re not going to tell me without a fight?”
“I’m not going to tell you at all.”
“Fair enough.”
I slipped off my coat to show that I meant business, but not before I had removed a pair of pliers from my pocket; another treasure from Wayne’s truck.
“What are you going to do with those?”
“Well,” I said, like I was considering my options, “I’ve got a few choices. I could pull a couple of your teeth and expose the nerves. That tends to work wonders. It hurts. I mean really hurts. And the cold weather will only make it worse. I figure twenty minutes and you’ll be crying like a baby, begging me to make it stop.”
“You can’t do that, man. That’s not right.”
“Not right? I think I like you. Despite everything, it’s almost as if you imagine there’s some code of honor at play here. Let me tell it to you straight, you’ve done worse. Live by the sword, die by the sword.”
He shook his head violently, his lips squeezed tightly together.
“Or,” I said, like it had just occurred to me, “I could pull out a few of your toenails. I’ve seen that done. It’s surprisingly painful, and effective when you need to get the truth out of someone. There are a lot of things I can do. And, like you said, you won’t talk, so I get to do them until your heart gives in.”
I was starting to get to him. I could tell. There was a tinge of yellow to his hue now.
I was getting inside his head.
I wanted to make him remember all of the things he’d done to other people. I wanted him to realize that I was capable of all of them and more.
“You can’t do that!”
“Why would you even think that? Seriously. There’s you, there’s me, but what I’m not seeing is someone here to stop me. You’re not going to claim the protection of the Geneva Convention, are you? That’d be priceless.” I drew the hunting knife from my belt. “Or, you know, come to think of it maybe you’re right. Maybe I should just cut your balls off.”
“You’re crazy.”
“No, definitely not that. But I am damaged. My old employers did that to me. So maybe we’re not so different in a lot of ways. I’m just better.” I held the edge of the blade to his cheek. I knew just how sharp it was: I could still feel the wound across the palm of my hand. I allowed the blade to make a cut on his cheekbone. Just once. Not deep, but deep enough to sting. He wouldn’t be able to tell how superficial the cut was, only that he was cut and that he was bleeding into his ear. I did the same on the other cheek and paused as if to admire my handiwork. “You can tell people they’re badges of honor when you’re inside.”
“Inside? What the fuck are you talking about now?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking about it, and I appreciate the bind you’re in. You’re just doing a job. It’s not personal. And right now you really wish you hadn’t taken your boss’s money. So, there’s a little piece of me that thinks, But for the grace of God, and all that. But there’s another part of me that frankly thinks it’d be pretty fucking apt if the guys you failed got to pay you a visit in Supermax. Maybe they’ll think you’ve cut a deal, sold them out, set the sniffer dogs on their trail. Maybe they’ll decide to cut their losses with you, or think you’ll make somebody just the perfect bitch. So many possibilities.”
“Just kill me now!”
I made another couple of cuts, deeper this time. “Tell me what I want to know. I’ll make it fast. Not only that. I’ll make it painless. You’re dead already, if it’s me or them. We’re both men of the world, we know this to be true. So what does it matter if you cough up the name? There’s no point torturing yourself to die in an hour or two or even a day or a week. Sometimes the only thing you can do is face the grim truth. You fucked up. I’m the reaper. That’s my pitch. You buying?”
He fell silent, contemplating his options, as if he hadn’t already spent enough time stewing over them. I didn’t figure he was playing for time: it wasn’t as though an extra minute was worth holding out for in his position. I drew the knife across one ankle, then the other, deep enough to sever the tendons. He wasn’t walking away from here, literally or metaphorically.
He gritted his teeth, biting down against the wave of agony that came with the first cut. On the second he screamed, and as he tried to fight back against the scream, bit deep into his tongue. It was so much worse than it might have been if he’d just spilled his guts when I asked nicely.
I looked at him dispassionately. “I am very good at this,” I promised. “Better than you. Are you ready to really scream?”
He shook his head. Blood smeared his lips and dribbled down his chin.
“Viktor Krip,” he said.
“That’s better. Why on earth couldn’t you have just come out with this earlier and saved yourself a lot of suffering? Now, where might I find him?”
“Miami,” he said. “That’s it. That’s all I know. There is no more. I don’t know where he is. I don’t know who’s next in the chain. None of it. He was my point of contact. A voice on the phone. That’s it.”
I believed him.
He’d given me everything he knew.
“Thank you.” I drew the knife across his arm, cutting up, from wrist to inner elbow, and the blood began to flow.
He was done.
It would take time, but not long, and with the storm coming in, he’d be food for the woodland fauna.
“Bastard. You said you’d kill me.”
“And I have. You won’t survive this. It’ll stop hurting soon enough. You’ll even start to warm up as you slip into unconsciousness.”
I stood up, fished out my burner phone and took a photograph of him to join the macabre gallery I’d already assembled in the phone’s memory.
66
The executive suite of the Four Seasons Hotel, Miami, was the height of decadent luxury with its jaw-dropping view out over Biscayne Bay. It was winter still, but winter here was nothing like winter back where I’d come from. The temperature outside was still close to eighty degrees. Thankfully the air-conditioning kept that at bay by providing a welcome chill.
It was the kind of place where the guests didn’t have to ask how much something cost. They could afford it or their expense accounts could.
A thick-set man in a dark suit read the sports section of the morning edition. There was a knock at the door. He folded the paper and put it down on the coffee-table. He moved easily, but not quickly. He was a big man. Ex-football player. Some folk down in the lobby might even have recognized him. Whoever stood on the other side of that door could wait for him. This might not be his room, but he remembered the days when it had been, and so much more, when he had the world in his hands and all he had to do was run with it.
“Room service,” the voice on the other side of the door called.
He hadn’t ordered anything.
He used the security peephole in the door. He saw a man in a hotel uniform. His features were distorted by the fish-eye lens. He didn’t recognize the guy, but that was hardly surprising—the hotel had so many staff he couldn’t possibly keep track.
He opened the door and stepped aside to let him in.
He faced down the business end of a SIG Sauer P230. He was in no doubt that the man holding it was prepared to use it. He’d met men with desperation in their eyes, men whose fingers were as likely to pull the trigger by accident as they were intentionally. The man in front of him was not one of those. The man in front of him was in control of the situation, of himself. He was used to handling a weapon.
“Why don’t you turn around, find yourself a seat, take a load off?” Byron Tibor said. “I’d like a quiet word with your boss.”
Instead of turning, the man went for the gun. He was fast. That had been part of his appeal as a player. He was just quicker than the rest. He had better reflexes.
But Byron was faster.
In the instant that the man lunged, Byron pulled the gun aside and swung his other hand, slapping him hard on the ear. It was a brutal hit, hard enough to deafen him. The bodyguard staggered a step back, head reeling, then fell to his knees as the butt of the SIG Sauer slammed into the other side of his head. He pitched face forward into the expensive carpet.
Byron stood over him. He eased his legs apart with his boot, and drove a savage kick up into the bodyguard’s testicles to make sure he wouldn’t be getting up any time soon.
67
It had taken me longer than I’d have liked to track him down, longer still to get into the suite, but I hadn’t expected his fancy football-player henchman to be quite such a soft touch. A case of reputation rather than ability.
I grabbed the guy by his jacket collar and hauled him onto the sofa with one hand. In almost the same motion, I slipped the tiny bugging device I’d brought with me from my pocket and fixed it to the wooden surface underneath the coffee-table.
“Do you want to tell me what you’re doing to him?” a man asked, emerging from one of the suite’s three bedrooms. He took my presence in his stride, glancing down at his insensate bodyguard who still clutched at his groin. He did not speak to him. “And for that matter, just who do you think you are?”
“Doesn’t matter who I think I am,” I said. I shook my head. “I’ve come to give you this,” I said, and fished a small envelope from inside the jacket pocket of my borrowed uniform. I dropped it onto the coffee-table in front of him.
“What is it?”
“A present. Don’t worry. It won’t bite. Why don’t you open it and take a look inside?”
He lifted the flap and tipped the contents out onto the table.
“Sorry about the quality,” I said, “I had to take them on my phone. And it’s a cheap piece of crap.”
“Why are you showing me these?” he asked, as he spread the three photographs on the glass top. There was no emotion on his face, none to his halo, either: no anger, no fear, not even disgust.
“Caleb Jacobs,” I said, pointing at the first of the pictures. The head of a man whose face had been blown away. “Sadly for him, I was only able to identify him from the contents of his billfold. If that was stolen and I’ve given him the wrong name, I apologize. He wasn’t a good man. Jacobs served time for robbery with violence and was wanted on several counts of aggravated assault. It would seem he enjoyed the violence more than the robbery.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“The second man is Dale Pasternak, wanted in three states that I know of for murder and crimes of a sexual nature. This guy was a piece of work.”
“I’m really not following. What have any of these men got to do with me?”
“If you take a look at his arm, you’ll see he had a bit of a problem with a bear trap,” I said, ignoring his question.
He looked up from the picture and, for the first time, showed a flicker of emotion: surprise.
“Now, the third man is more interesting. That’s Henry Dalhousie. Henry’s the real pro in the group. The other two were just psychos he picked up along the way, but he was the real deal. He once killed three fifteen-year-old girls because they cut up his car on the road.”
“More than a little excessive,” he agreed. “But I’m not sure that makes him any worse than the other two, does it?”
“He cut their feet off and watched them bleed to death while they tried to crawl away from him. That’s just one thing in his jacket. There’s a lot of other stuff in there, and it makes for pretty grim reading.”
“Judging by the fact you keep using the word ‘was’, I’m going to assume you killed them and that these are your trophy shots. But here’s the thing. I’m still not clear as to why you’re here. Care to enlighten me?”
“That’s easy. I’m here to give you a message.”
He inclined his head, making a show of listening.
“You hired these men to kill someone. A woman by the name of Raelynn Cardiman.”
“I think you’re mistaken.”
“I’m not. It took almost two hours of pain before that man gave up your name. You might have known her by a different name.” I jabbed a finger at the last photograph, which revealed the injuries I had inflicted on him.
He shrugged. It was the smallest thing, but in that moment I knew he was no better than the three men I had left dead on the mountain in Winter’s Rage. “Have you come here looking for a job? Is that it?”
“No, I’ve come to tell you to leave Raelynn and her family alone.”
“You come into my home to threaten me?” He laughed “Now that’s rich.”
“You’ve got me wrong. I haven’t come to threaten anyone. What I’m proposing is we draw a line under it.”
“Elspeth, Raelynn as you call her, owes me money. A lot of money. Are you here to pay off her debt?”
“Chalk it off as an expense,” I suggested. “The cost of doing business with a junkie.”
“It’s not my call.”
“Then make the call up the chain. That you can do. Sell the idea of peace, hard, to your boss. Because if I hear that Raelynn or her family or anyone else in Winter’s Rage has been killed, I will come looking for you. I know that you’re answerable to other people. I get that. It’s business. That’s the way the world works. But I’ll hold you personally responsible. And you don’t want that. So convince the next man in the chain she’s not worth it.”
