The Assassin Read online

  The house was looking shabby, the grass needed mowing, and the trash had been scattered everywhere by dogs or possums or, shit, maybe even coyotes. He didn’t care about any of that, though, as he walked around the house to the barn that sat a hundred feet behind it. When he was twenty feet from the door, it opened and his cousin, Lewis, stepped into view, a sawed-off twelve-gauge shotgun cradled in his arms.

  “You call that standing guard?” Dwayne groused.

  “Hell, I heard you drive up, and nobody can do that without the code for the gate. Since Bucky and I are already here, it had to be you.”

  Dwayne slapped Lewis on the back of the head, then stepped inside the barn. The building looked rickety from the outside, but this was no fly-by-night meth lab. Barring any fuckups with the chemicals, he figured this just might be his permanent base of operations.

  Lewis closed the door and cool air slowly replaced the afternoon heat. Dwayne walked back to the counter where Bucky was measuring out chemicals. “How’s it going?”

  Bucky didn’t even glance up. “It would go better if you’d stick his skinny ass outside where he wouldn’t drive me nuts.”

  Yeah, Lewis was real good at driving people nuts. Lazy, whiny, shiftless, too stupid for his own good—that was Aunt Louella’s pride and joy. He’d already settled in front of the tube with a cold beer, the shotgun forgotten by the door.

  “Hey, Lewis, why don’t you drive into Mannford and get us some food?”

  “Nah, I’m not hungry.”

  Dwayne saw Bucky smirk. “Goddammit, Lewis—” He crossed the room in three strides and thumped him on the head again, this time hard enough to make the wooden chair teeter. He tossed a couple of twenties in his cousin’s direction, then shut off the TV. “Get us some Sonic or something. Go on.”

  “Jesus H., Dwayne, we ain’t kids no more and you can’t order me around like we was. You are not the boss of me.”

  Dwayne jerked him to his feet and gave him an ugly smile. “Who runs this operation, Lewis?”

  “You do.”

  “And who do you work for?”

  “You.”

  “So what does that make me?”

  Lewis’s chin sank to his chest as he mumbled, “The boss.”

  “Go on. Get outa here.” Dwayne gave him a shove toward the door, then went back to the counter.

  “It’s a shame what inbreeding does to a man,” Bucky said, still wearing that smirk.

  Dwayne would like nothing more than to smack him the way he had Lewis, but Bucky was six five and tipped the scales at more than three hundred pounds. He’d been meaner than a snake before he’d gone down for ten years at the state pen in McAlester, and he’d learned a lot while in the system. Dwayne had seen him interrupt his dinner to break a man’s neck, then finish eating like nothing had happened. He wasn’t about to get crossways with Bucky.

  He got two beers from the refrigerator, gave one to Bucky, then leaned against the counter. “I got a call this morning from a friend of a friend who’s looking to invest a little cash in our growing enterprise.”

  “He tell you who the friend was?”

  “A guy by the name of Arias. Says you knew him down in Big Mac.”

  Bucky nodded. “I knew a guy. Wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.”

  “You don’t trust anyone.”

  “Not even you.” Bucky grinned, sort of crazylike. “You gonna meet with this ‘friend of a friend’?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What if it’s the vigilante? I heard that fucker, Washington, got a call to meet with someone just before he got popped.”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  Bucky shrugged. “Somewhere.”

  Bullshit, somewhere. Dwayne had no doubt Bucky knew exactly who had told him, and when and where they were and what they were doing at the time. “So somebody called Washington up, arranged a meet, then blew him away. Damn, if I’d known it was that easy, I’d’ve got rid of the competition years ago.”

  Bucky’s snort said it all. Dwayne didn’t have the stomach for cold-blooded murder. Where he came from, that was a good thing. Not so in Bucky’s world. “So what are you gonna do?”

  Dwayne didn’t like the idea that somebody might be out there looking to kill him. But he couldn’t stop doing business just because some nut job had taken it on himself to clean up the streets. If he got too chickenshit to do his job, somebody else would step in and do it for him.

  “I’ll have to think about it,” he decided, ignoring Bucky’s grin.

  Think about it a lot . . . and maybe take out a little insurance with a Street Crimes cop he used to know.

  At three P.M. on Thursday, Selena was waiting on the small front porch of her new house on Princeton Court when a silver Jaguar turned into the driveway. The driver was female, a well-preserved early forties, with short red hair, killer nails, and a practiced smile. “Selena,” she greeted, extending her hand long before she reached the porch. “I’m Christine Evans. Welcome to Tulsa. Did you have any problem finding the place?”

  “No, not at all. Your directions were good.” Selena stood up, then shook hands while taking stock. The other woman was only five six in heels. Her perfume was Chanel, and her dress was Vera Wang. Very flattering, very expensive.

  Christine unlocked the door, shut off the alarm, then stepped back so Selena could enter. She followed, stopping expectantly in the living-room doorway while Selena moved around the perimeter of the room. “What do you think?”

  “It’s lovely.” And it was, with twelve-foot ceilings, plaster walls painted pale cream, and elaborate crown molding around the ceiling and the doors. The furniture was pricey reproductions of period-appropriate pieces, with a faded Persian rug covering a well-worn hardwood floor. A corner armoire, carved and painted in country French style, concealed a television and DVD setup.

  The fireplace, complete with marble surround, took up most of the outside wall, with a matching one visible through the wide doorway into the dining room. Another broad door led into the kitchen, where black-and-white floor tile formed a diamond pattern. The cabinets were metal and looked original to the house, with their powder-green finish and chrome half-moon pulls, and the countertops were made of stone, coarse and cool beneath her fingers. The appliances were no-frills, basic pieces, lacking so much as one fingerprint or grimy smudge. They were temporary props and looked it.

  She continued the tour, making the appropriate responses to Christine’s chatter about the weather, the neighborhood, and shopping. The rest of the downstairs included a half bath, a laundry room and pantry, a sunroom addition, and a door off the kitchen that led to the basement. Barely concealing her shudder, she declined Christine’s offer to examine the room. Upstairs were three bedrooms and a full bath.

  It was all lovely . . . and small enough to be damn near claustrophobic.

  “Let me show you the alarm,” Christine said as they returned to the foyer, “then I’ve got to rush to my next appointment. There’s a keypad at both the front and back doors. . . .”

  Selena only half listened. She committed the code to memory, though changing it would be her first priority, then thanked the agent for her help and ushered her out the door.

  Once the Jag was gone from sight, she returned to the kitchen. She had noticed the leather attaché on the counter, though Christine had pretended it wasn’t there. Inside was the cell phone William had promised, along with some cash. She had her own cell phone, she had protested, and William had let out a long-suffering sigh. She had a lot to learn about his business, he’d announced.

  But she already knew more than she wanted to know about his business.

  She knew it involved murder.

  There was nothing else in the attaché. No note saying Thanks or I’m sorry or Let’s get together. Nothing to suggest that she was more than just another employee paid to do William’s bidding. She knew better than to expect anything more, but that didn’t stop the faint twinge of disappoin
tment forming inside. Habit. She had wanted so much but been disappointed for so long that it had become second nature.

  She’d taken only a few steps away from the counter when the silence was broken by the trill of the cell phone. The tune was “The Sting,” no doubt William’s idea of a joke. She answered with a cool “Hello.”

  “Selena, sweetheart. Did I disturb you?”

  The sound of his voice brought its usual rush of emotions. She was overwhelmingly grateful for all he’d given her. Some part of the frightened little girl whose life he’d saved fourteen years ago in an Ocho Rios alley remained inside her, craving his attention, but the woman she’d become had learned to welcome his indifference. She despised the business he was in, the way he manipulated her, and that little girl’s need for his affection. She sometimes thought she loved him and sometimes knew she hated him.

  Did he disturb her? All the time. “Not at all. I’m unpacking.”

  “How was your trip?”

  “Uneventful.” Just as this conversation was destined to be. Would he mention last night’s intruder at the estate or what action he had taken? Had he fired the guards? Beefed up security? Had the thought even crossed his mind that it could have been her?

  “You could have flown and saved all those hours of driving.”

  His remark answered her last question. No, he hadn’t suspected her for an instant. For their entire life together, he had given orders and she had followed them. Learn to read, write, walk, and talk, he’d said, and she had. Go off to live among strangers thousands of miles from home, and she had. Transform yourself, educate yourself, become someone to make me proud, and she had. Come to Oklahoma to kill a man, and there she was. No, it never would have occurred to him that she might do anything other than exactly what he told her.

  “I enjoyed all those hours of driving,” she said evenly.

  “When did you get in?”

  “A few hours ago. I had lunch, then called Christine Evans. She just left.”

  “Is the house satisfactory?”

  “It’s lovely.”

  “What did you think of Ms. Evans?”

  She leaned against the island, her gaze on the scene outside the window—a bit of lawn, the rear corner of the neighboring house, and a black-and-tan dog snoozing peacefully in its fenced-in yard. How many excruciatingly polite conversations had she and William shared over the years? Too many.

  For a long time she had blamed herself for his distance—she wasn’t polished enough, perfect enough, to be allowed close. As an adult she’d realized it was a means of control. She wanted a closer relationship, so he kept her at arm’s length. If she gave him what he wanted—her working in his business—she suspected that would change. Some small part of her still wanted it to.

  Showing no hint of her annoyance over the pointless conversation, she replied, “Ms. Evans seemed very nice.”

  William chuckled. “She grew up in Oakhurst, you know . . . but of course you don’t. It wasn’t on your list of places to see two years ago, and rightly so. Let’s just say that, at one time, you would have felt very much at home there.” The chuckle came again. “At one time, you would have felt very lucky to live there.”

  Closing her eyes, she let her mouth curve in a sardonic smile. She would never forget where she’d come from—it was as much a part of her as her black hair, her brown eyes, and her brown skin—but William damn well intended to make sure of it.

  “Thankfully, you don’t have to worry about where you live anymore. I took care of that little problem for good.”

  As regular as clockwork—first the dig, then the reminder of how he had saved her. It had been such a routine part of their conversations that for years she hadn’t even noticed.

  Deliberately she changed the subject. “Will I see you while I’m here, Uncle?”

  “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

  “Two years.” If pressed, she could narrow it down to the exact number of months, days, and even hours.

  “A special dinner, perhaps. Remember when we celebrated your eighteenth birthday in Paris? The food was amazing. And that incredible seven-course meal at the castle in Germany?”

  “Of course.” She remembered virtually every moment she’d ever spent with him—every time he’d dropped in on her at school, every trip they’d taken, every visit he’d arranged in neutral territory. She had felt important at those times, special, and she’d been grateful for every one of them.

  Did he have any idea that she was dangerously short on gratitude these days?

  “It was easier then. We shared such a bright, promising future.” Until she’d disappointed him by refusing to join his business. The sigh accompanying his words sounded genuinely regretful. “Well, perhaps we can have dinner next week. Of course, we’ll have to keep a low profile, but I’m sure we can work something out.”

  She stood motionless. She truly hadn’t expected time alone with him on this visit. “Low profile” didn’t begin to cover his past behavior with her. On her previous visit, when there had been nothing at stake, she had been lucky to catch a glimpse of him as he left the house. Even on the trips to Europe he’d mentioned, they had traveled separately and stayed on different floors, sometimes in different hotels, all for the sake of his “low profile.”

  Before she had recovered enough to respond, the blast of a siren sounded over the phone, and she realized there had been a fair amount of traffic noise in the background from the beginning. He was calling on either a cell phone or a pay phone. Though regular cell-phone calls were easy to track, prepaid cells and pay phones, he had informed her, provided the ultimate in anonymity.

  After the siren had faded, he asked, “What about your neighbors? Have you met any of them yet?”

  “No, not yet. I imagine they’re all at work. Perhaps this evening.”

  “My cell number is programmed into your phone. Once you’ve met them, I would be interested in hearing your impressions. In the meantime, I’ll let you get back to your unpacking, sweetheart. If you need anything at all, you have Christine’s number, right?”

  It was so typical of him—surprise her into silence by suggesting they get together, then remind her to turn to a total stranger if she needed assistance. Typical or not, it sparked an ache inside.

  “Right,” she said, hearing the bitterness that eased into her voice despite her best efforts. “I’ll talk to you soon, Uncle. Good-bye.”

  4

  “I love cell phones.”

  Tony glanced up from the thick stack of pages in front of him to see Simmons grinning at his desk.

  “Think about it. They’re convenient as hell. Everybody has one, even my eighty-year-old grandmother. People use them all the time, and every single call is documented. What could be cooler than that?”

  “You’ve been looking at those call records too long, Frankie. You’re getting a little crazy.” He sure as hell was. None of their three latest victims had had a home phone, which was a good thing for the cops. The phone company didn’t track all outgoing and incoming calls in the local area, not without a warrant beforehand, but the cell providers did. On the records he and Simmons had divided between them, they had the phone numbers of every single person Grover and his boys had called, and everyone who’d called them, in the past three months. All their business and personal contacts, literally hundreds of them.

  And he and Frankie had the pleasure of identifying them, questioning them, and cross-referencing the numbers with the other victims’ records. As jobs went, this one topped the list headed “tedious,” and would probably be unproductive, as well. It had been in the previous vigilante cases.

  But Tony could put off the tedium until later. It was after three o’clock, and he was planning to stop by his folks’ house before he went home. After stuffing the records into his briefcase, he stood, stretched, then pulled his jacket on.

  “Throwing in the towel already?” Simmons asked as he started packing up, too. “You’re usually the last
one out.”

  “I’ve got things to do.”

  “What? Go home, run, then work all night?” Simmons sorrowfully shook his head. “You need a life, Chee . . . and I’ve got just the woman to provide it. Her name’s Mary Beth and she’s got a body . . .” He gave a low whistle.

  “Is she a friend of Suz’s?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Hey, Suz has some really hot friends.”

  “Who are all looking to get married, and Suz has pledged her unrelenting assistance to the cause. Thanks, but no, thanks.”

  Simmons followed Tony to the stairs. “It’s not natural for a man to turn his back on a beautiful woman, Chee. You got a problem? Tell Uncle Frankie about it and he’ll fix it.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got a problem, Frank. I’m hot for you, but I couldn’t bear to break up Suz’s happy home.”

  “Asshole. Wanna get a beer before you go home?”

  “No, thanks. I’ve got to stop at the dry cleaner’s and the bank, then check in on my folks. If I time it right, Mom will feed me.”

  “If you’d join the rest of us suckers and get married, your wife would feed you.”

  “Yeah, right. That’s why you bitch all the time that Suz’s idea of cooking is McDonald’s or Domino’s.”

  “One of these days you’ll take the leap, partner, and I’m gonna laugh my ass off. You won’t be so smug about it then.”

  With a nod good-bye, Tony slid into the Impala, cranked the engine, turned the AC to high, and rolled down the windows. By the time he reached the dry cleaner’s, the temperature inside the car had reached comfortable. He stashed the clothes in the backseat, rolled up the windows, then headed south.

  His parents lived east of Yale and south of Fifty-first. When they’d bought the house nearly forty years earlier, it had been right at the edge of town. Now the city went on for miles in each direction and showed no sign of stopping.