“I’m getting closer, sir. There’s been a snag.”
“What about Jenna? You find out something?”
“It’s pretty involved. I know all the players now.”
“That doesn’t help me or my wife. I need you to do what I’m paying you for.”
“I understand that, sir. I just don’t have anything for you right now.”
“Well, pardon my asking but why the hell’d you call me then?”
“The players I talked about, sir. They know who I am now.”
“Shit.”
“That’s all on me, sir. I’m dealing with it now.”
“You telling me that if they know you then they know me.”
“No, sir. There’s no connection between me and you and why I’m here.”
“Then what do you want me to do?”
“Just an FYI, sir. Keeping you informed.”
“Just find Jenna.”
“I will, sir. You have my word.”
The line went dead.
Less than an hour passed and the reception desk called.
“Outside call for you, Mr. Wiley. Line four.”
“Who is it, Debbie?”
“She says she’s from Gulfside Moving and Storage. Question about an employee.”
He punched line four.
“You got Joe Bob. What can I do for you?”
“This is human resources for Gulfside Moving. Is this someone in charge?”
“Only the goddamned owner, honey. Joseph Wiley of Wiley-Manners.”
“We wanted to talk to your human resources department but we’re told you don’t have one.” The woman on the other end had an edge of nervousness to it. It sounded like her first day on the job. Or she was lying.
“I do all the hiring here. Where you calling from?”
A pause.
Another voice behind her.
“We’re in the Tampa Bay area. I’m calling based on a reference on an employment application to be a driver for us.”
“Who’s applying?”
“Levon Edward Cade. He works for you in some capacity?”
Joe Bob covered the phone and took a deep breath.
“That son of a bitch? I fired his ass a month ago. You mean that dumb bastard had the balls to put me down as a work reference? That boy’s dumber than shit, I tell you. That’s why I fired his ass.”
Another pause. The rasp of a hand covering the phone on the other end. Muffled voices.
“Hello? You still there?” Joe Bob said.
“And do you know his current location, Mr Wiley?”
“Why the hell would I know that? Shithead could fall off the planet for all I care. All’s I’m saying is he’s not worth the hire. You hearing me, honey?”
“Thank you for your assistance. Have a nice day.”
The line went dead.
Joe Bob sat back in his chair. The back of his shirt was soaked with sweat. His throat felt dry as paper. He pulled a bottom drawer out of his desk and retrieved a bottle of Maker’s Mark that had been unopened since a vendor gifted it to him last Christmas. He poured a long slug to top off his lukewarm mug of coffee.
What the hell did you get yourself into, Levon? And what the hell did you get me into?
Gunny Leffertz said:
“You can’t always choose your enemies. Some days they choose you.”
33
* * *
The two men sat side by side in first class on the short leg flight to Huntsville. Their leather coats creaked but they declined the attendant’s offer to put them in the overhead.
Karp was a big man. He struggled to find a comfortable position even in the wider premium seat. His right arm took up the entire console arm between himself and his traveling partner.
Nestor shrugged against the window, fiddling with a tablet. His fingers sliding across the screen pecking and swiping. He was slighter than Karp with a boy’s face that made him almost as pretty as a girl if not for a predator look apparent in his ice-grey eyes. His shoulder-length chestnut hair was worn loose to hide those eyes from those he hunted until it was too late.
They were airborne from Tampa with vodkas between them. Nestor took his with ice. He’d become an American. Karp found that contemptuous but they no longer spoke of it.
“This Levon. It is as if he did not exist,” Nestor said in Russian, eyes on the screen of his tablet.
Karp grunted and shrugged.
“He was born, he went to school, he joined the army, he got married, his wife died. That is all. Years and years of nothing. No jobs? No school reunions? He is invisible to me,” Nestor said.
“Google him,” Karp said.
“You think I didn’t Google him? The first thing I did was Google him.”
“Re-Google him.”
“There is no such thing as re-Googling. It is not a slot machine, Karp. Same results every time.”
Karp said nothing. He was eyeing an attendant who was showing off a lot of ass bending over a service cart. I would Google that, he thought to himself. I would Google that until it bleeds. He caught Nestor’s disapproving glance.
“You should know this stuff, Karp. You should learn this stuff. What if there was a day when I was no longer here?” Nestor said.
“Then I would no longer be here, dear one. I would be dead as well,” Karp said and squeezed Nestor’s thigh with the same gentle touch that always surprised the younger man.
“Refresh those drinks?” the big-assed attendant said with a professional smile. His name tag read ANDY.
The plane arrived on time at Huntsville International. A man they knew from Detroit by way of Kiev joined them in the line for the bus out to the rental services. He had a FedEx package under his arm that he left behind when he got out at the stop for Budget. Karp picked it up off the seat and took it along when he and Nestor got out at Enterprise. The pair rented a car and drove out of the city to the apartment listed for Levon Edward Cade on the driver’s license.
Karp drove while Nestor prized open the FedEx box. Inside were a pair of Browning automatics fully loaded with a spare magazine for each. There were two knives as well. A curved skinning knife in a leather sheath and a clasp knife with a four-inch blade. There was also a small pry bar that would fit in a pocket and a brand new pay-as-you-go cell phone charged with one thousand minutes.
Using the mini-pry bar they were into the apartment within a second. The place showed all the signs of a man who lived alone except for the neatness. The place was dusted. No dishes or glasses in the sink. The bed was made, for God’s sake. The bedroom was featureless except for a chest of drawers and a twin mattress on a platform.
Karp took the closet and Nestor the dresser.
The closet was all pressed casual or work clothes still in the plastic wrap from a cleaner. Karp sniffed and smelled gun oil. He uncovered a rifle and shotgun cleaning kit tucked behind a pair of Rubbermaid containers of neatly folded army fatigues in desert camo. He pulled the containers from the closet and felt the walls all around for panels. No hiding places for guns.
Nestor pulled drawers from the dresser and dumped them on the bed. Socks, briefs, t-shirts and running shorts. Some change fell to the floor and some of the coins sounded heavier than normal currency. Nestor crouched and picked up some colorful coins the size of silver dollars. They were decorated in gold and silver and enamel. One had a diving eagle on one side and a map of Afghanistan on the other. Another had Bart Simpson with a grinning skull face holding a bloody dagger in skeletal hands. They bore acronyms that meant nothing to Nestor except NCIS which he knew from television.
“He is military,” Nestor said tossing a coin to Karp.
Karp laughed at the spooky Bart and stuck the coin in his pocket.
They went into the living room which was as spartan as the bedroom. A pair of cheap armchairs. A pressed wood end table and the last analog television in America. In place of a table and chairs near the kitchenette was an antique roll top desk and wheeled office chair.
These were the only interesting pieces of furniture in the apartment; the only evidence of any kind of the individuality of the occupant.
Nestor pried open the drawers and top to rifle the desk while Karp made sandwiches from the contents of the refrigerator. The younger man sat on a stool at the kitchen counter and went through paper files he found in the desk. Karp played homemaker placing sandwiches and beers between them. Swiss and hot mustard for the big man and peanut butter and jam for his little tovarich. Such an American Nestor had become.
“Bingo,” Nestor said.
Karp grunted through a mouthful of sandwich.
“These are legal papers. Our man Levon is a father. He is suing his father-in-law in court for custody of his daughter,” Nestor said.
“America,” Karp said, spitting crumbs of bread and cheese as he spoke.
“This man was a soldier. You ask me, too smart to come back here. He must know that we know him now.”
Karp nodded.
“Let us go see his father-in-law and see what we might learn.”
“You are so smart, dear one,” Karp said, reaching across the counter to give his partner a tender slap.
Nestor touched the streak of mustard on the bigger man’s cheek.
They finished their sandwiches and left for the house in Twickenham.
34
* * *
Levon filled a cart at a Walmart in Corinth, Mississippi.
He bought clothes for Merry that she helped pick out. Shirts, underwear, socks, jeans and a heavier winter coat. Also a pair of boots and a sweater she “just had to have.” A new toothbrush, a bottle of Flintstones, a comb and some coloring books and crayons. A selection of her favorite breakfast cereals went into the cart. She had enough changes of clothes to last a week without laundering.
He paid with cash and the elderly woman at the register remarked that “someone is a very lucky little girl.”
“And it’s not even my birthday.” Merry beamed.
They ate at a Subway before getting back on the highway south towards Tupelo.
Levon took a trio of pills from a plastic carrying case he kept in his pocket. He popped them in his mouth and swallowed with a sip of raspberry ice tea.
“Are you still sick?” Merry said.
“I’m not sick,” he said.
“Granpa says you are. He say you take pills because you’re sick.”
“These pills? They’re like vitamins for my brain. I don’t take them because I’m sick. I take them to make me think better.”
“I’d like to think better.”
“You think just fine, honey.”
“Does your friend know we’re coming?” Merry said, stabbing a straw into the ice for a last sip of punch at the bottom of the paper cup.
“He doesn’t know.”
“You should call him. We don’t want to be rude.”
“He doesn’t have a phone, Merryberry.”
She knitted her brows. No phone? Unthinkable. Everyone had a phone.
“Why not, Daddy?”
“Well, his wife and him live way out in the woods away from the world. They like it that way.”
“Why’s that?”
“My friend says he’s seen everything in the world he wants to see. He headed back into the trees and built himself a cabin there.”
“So, us coming to see him is a surprise?” she said.
“Something like that,” Levon said.
Merry was silent for a while, stabbing at the ice in her drink cup with her straw.
“Daddy?” she said after a bit.
“Yes, honey?”
“You promised to take me to Disneyworld.”
“Well, I can’t do that right now.”
“It’s okay,” she said. It was the opposite of okay but she wanted him to know she was going to be brave about it. It was also important that he know just how brave she was being. She slumped back into the booth as he gathered their sandwich papers to clear the table.
“Merry,” he said standing and holding her coat out to her.
“Yes?” she said, being so very brave but not looking him in the face.
“Last time I was at my friend’s I saw wild ponies in the woods.”
She snatched the coat from his hand and was heading for the store exit in her new boots. He trotted after.
Disneyworld?
Never heard of the place.
Gunny Leffertz said:
“There’s no reasoning with evil.”
35
* * *
Dr. Roth heard the doorbell ring but chose to ignore it to finish his morning shave. He was patting his cheeks with cucumber infused witch hazel when he heard Marcia call his name. Her voice quavered like the time she found the garden snake under the water heater.
Dressed only in a bath towel tied around his waist he stepped to the top of the stairs. Down in the foyer Marcia stood between two men who were dressed in dark leather coats. One of them had Marcia in a chokehold. A gloved fist held a curved knife against his wife’s side and angled to go up under her bottom rib. Jordan’s vision was drawn to the tattoo on the man’s neck. A grinning human skull smoking a cigarette.
The smaller of the two men, a young man with a baby face and hair to his shoulders, began to climb the stairs toward Jordan.
Jordan moved away down the hallway seeking options as he ran. The towel slipped down to his ankles tripping him. The doctor was back on his feet and sprinting for the end of the hall.
He owned no firearms. He’d read a study that proved that a gun in the home was 67% more likely to be used as a murder weapon than in an incident of home defense. The only phones, landlines, were downstairs in his office and the kitchen. A Danish study posited that cell and cordless phones significantly increased the risk of brain cancers. The Roths did not have an alarm system of any kind because Jordan saw it as a waste of funds as they’d spent so much to buy a home in a safe neighborhood.
Dr. Roth took the only alternative that remained for his continued survival.
He locked himself in the bathroom.
Braced against the sink cabinet, he listened to footsteps approaching on the hardwood floor. Cucumber infused sweat dripped from his face. The door between him and the invading strangers was a hollow fill door made of Masonite and recycled materials. It was part of the eco-friendly restoration of the house that Jordan insisted on before they moved in thirty years earlier. It would never stand up to whoever was in the hallway. The only window in the room was a double-glazed insulated window fixed in its frame with no opening options. It was only a matter of time before the door came down and they had him.
Jordan surprised the man in the hallway by pulling open the bathroom door.
The man stepped back raising a pistol of some kind at the naked doctor.
“I’m not resisting. There’s no call for violence,” Jordan said holding his palms out.
The long-haired young man’s expression melted from surprise to a cruel leer. He used his gloved gun hand to brush the hair from his eyes.
When he saw this man’s eyes the doctor reassessed his decision to give in so easily and admitted it might not have been the wisest course. The eyes looked like he imagined a hawk’s might when soaring high above the earth looking for prey.
“Say nothing more or I shoot you. Come with me or I shoot you,” the young man said in accented English.
“May I put on some clothes?” Jordan said.
The young man raised the gun to aim at the doctor’s face.
Naked, Jordan led the way to the head of the steps with the young man following.
36
* * *
Hands bound with tape behind his back, Jordan Roth was packed into the confines of a car truck where he lay pressed against Marcia’s back. Still naked. He shivered in the cold while searching the invisible organ of his mind for a solution that would save their lives.
This had to be about Levon Cade, his son-in-law. What kind of trouble was he in? What had
he done that brought these men to the door of the Roth home?
Marcia was crying and whispering incoherently. It was a prayer. The sound of it made it difficult for Jordan to concentrate on his thoughts.
“Please, please,” he whispered and nudged her back with his knees.
She mistook it for an effort to comfort her and reduced the noises she made to intermittent whimpering.
They rode a long way. The doctor lost track of time but it seemed like a long drive with many turns. They came to rest a moment. A rhythmic metallic rattling. A garage door going up. The car started forward again. The sound of the motor resonated now in echoes. They had pulled inside a building rather than a garage. The car stopped. The engine died. Two doors opened and slammed shut.
The trunk popped open. The young man and the brute were there. They hauled the Roths from the trunk and walked/dragged them over a concrete floor to a metal chair by a table. Jordan was placed in the chair. His wife dropped to the floor.
The building was a cavernous empty space. An industrial warehouse abandoned for many years. Stacks of debris were pushed against the wall. There was a tang of rust and oil in the air.
The brute busied himself taping Jordan securely in the chair. The glue tugged at his naked flesh. Jordan remained silent. He would not plead. He would not bargain. He would wait to see what these men wanted and then decide his course. This was the decision he’d come to on the ride to this forgotten place. They would set the conditions of the game. He would play their game and win. They were thugs with simple minds and simple motives. He was an educated man with an agile mind.
The objects on the table were cause for alarm. A battery operated power drill. A hammer. A box of four inch nails. A can of charcoal lighter. A pair of adjustable pliers.
The younger of the two leaned back on the table.
“Levon Cade is your son-in-law?” Nestor said.
“Yes. He was. Until my daughter died,” Jordan said, voice level, eyes turned away from the tools on the table.