Atonement (9 page)

“I don’t keep them, Logan.  I rear the critters and send them off to market. It’s what I’ve done for thirty years, and I think the stink of them has become part of who I am now.”

All too soon they were in downtown Denver.  Ralph stopped at the junction of 14
^th
Street and East Colfax, and Logan retrieved his rucksack and got out.  “It was nice to meet you, Ralph,”  he said, and meant it.

“And you, Logan,”  Ralph said before driving away.

Logan took a leisurely stroll to the Amtrak station on 21
^st
Street and put his rucksack in a storage locker.  It took bills, and so he fed it nine bucks, which was the daily rate.  He had walking money and the knife for company.  Found an internet café and thought of how best to approach Wade McCall as he brought up a map of the city and zoomed in on the area he was interested in as he enjoyed a large paper cup full of black coffee.  Decided in the end that it would save a lot of time to just call at his office cold and talk straight.

“Help you?”  Lenny Benedict said to Logan as he walked in off Broadway into a large reception area.

“Yeah, I need to speak to Wade.”

“About?”

“Private business.  You don’t need to know the details.”

“And you are?”

“I’m Logan.  Run that name past your boss.”

“And if I don’t?”  Lenny said, stepping up to within two feet of Logan.

Logan smiled.  He was perhaps an inch taller than the muscular black guy, whose light blue polyester jacket was almost bursting its seams against his muscles.

“Back off, son,”  he said.  “You’re in my face, and I find that slightly annoying.  And your breath stinks of garlic.”

Lenny just stood and blinked a few times.  He wasn’t used to guys standing up to him, much less insulting him.  He thought it through.  Decided that phoning upstairs to his boss might be the best thing to do.

“You got a bad attitude, man,”  he said to Logan.  And then went behind a counter, picked up the phone on it and punched in an extension number.

“Yeah,”  Wade said.

“I gotta guy down here says his name is Logan.  He wants to see you, boss.”

“Make sure he’s not wired or carrying, and then send him up,”  Wade said.  “Lock the door to the street and join us.”

Lenny hung up the phone and returned to where Logan was standing.  “I need to frisk you,”  he said.

Lifting his arms Logan said, “Knock yourself out.”

Lenny found the knife in the ankle sheath. Removed it and pointed to the door behind them next to the counter.

“Go on up,”  he said to Logan.  “First on your left at the top of the stairs.”

Logan walked past Lenny, pushed the door open and went up.  Didn’t knock, just went into the spacious office behind it.

Wade was sitting behind a semicircular blond wood desk.  Logan thought he looked a lot like Martin Sheen, the actor that had starred in the
West Wing
on TV.  The resemblance ended with his facial features.  He wore an expensive dark-gray pinstripe suit and a maroon silk tie, but with long, dyed hair held back in a ponytail, and chunky gold rings on three fingers of each hand, he couldn’t pull off a sophisticated look.  Appeared more like some middle-aged hip-hop music producer from the City of Angels.

“Take a seat, Mr, er, Logan, isn’t it?”  Wade said.

“You know who I am, McCall,”  Logan said.  “If you didn’t, then I wouldn’t have got past Muscles downstairs without breaking his arms.”

“I very much doubt you could have done that,”  Wade said.

Logan smiled.  “Doubt implies uncertainty.”

Wade was more than curious.  Mickey had not contacted him, and it was obvious that he had not been able to fulfill the contract.  “So what can I do for you Mr. Logan?”  he said as Lenny entered the office and took up a position at the side of the door.

“Simple, Mr. McCall.  You give me the name of the guy that wanted me hit, and I walk away and call it quits.”

Wade looked blank and said, “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

“Sure you do.  You sent Mickey Morgan to Carson Creek. I talked with him, and he told me quite a lot of interesting stuff.  The one thing that he couldn’t tell me was who took out the contract on me.  At this point in time I’m willing to just think of you as a middleman.  But if I don’t get a name, then I’ll have to reconsider and change my polite and good-natured approach into something more aggressive.”

Wade pushed his chair back and shot upright to a modest five-nine.  “You’re beginnin’ to piss me off, Logan,”  he said.  “Get the fuck out of my office before I let Lenny finish whatever this Morgan character couldn’t.”

Logan didn’t move.  Stood resolute.  His body language told Wade that he had no intention of backing off.

An almost imperceptible nod of Wade’s head was an instruction for Lenny to make a move.  He came at Logan from behind, confident that he could administer a devastating kidney punch that would put the man down and unable to defend himself against further punishment.

Logan just wasn’t there.  Lenny’s fist hit nothing more substantial than thin air.  His own weight took Lenny forward, stumbling as he lost balance, only to be lifted slightly as a boot came up from the side to bury into his stomach, a split second before his head crashed into the front edge of the desk.  He was out cold before he hit the floor.

It took Wade a couple of seconds to appreciate the circumstances.  By then Logan had retrieved his sheathed knife from Lenny’s jacket, drawn the weapon and was at the side of the desk holding the blade to Wade’s throat.

“Looks like Plan B, Wade,”  Logan said.  “Put both of your hands palm down on the desk, and then tell me the name of the contractor, now, or it all ends here for you.”

“What did you do to Morgan?”  Wade asked.

“What do you think?  I killed him.  I have a problem with folk that wish to do me harm.”

“And if I give you a name, you might kill me.”

“I will if you
don’t,
that’s set in stone.”

Wade was in a bind.  He had a semiautomatic pistol in the desk drawer next to his right hand, but it might as well have been on the moon.

He hesitated for too long.  Logan plunged the knife’s blade through the back of his right hand, pinning it to the wood.

Wade let out a cry of anguish and attempted to pull his hand free, causing more damage.  Two inches of the blade had sunk through the desktop.  The point had pierced the underside and would’ve looked like a steel shark’s tooth to anyone that could have seen it

“The name, Wade,”  Logan said.  “And if it doesn’t check out I’ll be back.  And it’ll be when and where you least expect.  You won’t see me coming.”

“Who the fuck are you?”  Wade whispered.

“Just a guy with nothing to lose.  The name?”

“Larry Horton.”

Logan nodded.  It didn’t surprise him.  He used his left hand to hold Wade’s injured hand down as he pulled the knife out.  Wiped the blood from both sides of the blade on the shoulder of the gangster’s expensive jacket.

“Okay, Wade,”  Logan said, patting the man down to see if he was armed, and then checking the drawers to find the handgun and remove it, using a Kleenex from a box on the desk as a barrier to his prints.  “I think we’re done here.  Get up and go lay face down next to Sleeping Beauty.”

Wade did as he was told.  He wanted to tell Logan that he was a fuckin’ dead man walkin’, but decided not to push his luck.  The knife in the back of his hand had concentrated his mind.  Any threats he made would no doubt result in more injury and pain.

Logan found Lenny’s cell phone, asked Wade for his, and removed the SIM cards.  He then cut the line to the phone on the desk.  All he needed was sixty seconds head start to hit the street and be swallowed up in foot traffic on the sidewalk.

“One more thing, Wade,”  Logan said as he reached the door.  “If Larry runs, it’ll be because you warned him.  That would be another reason for me to come back to Denver.  Understand?”

Wade nodded.

“Say it,”  Logan said.

“I understand.”

“I hope so, because you really don’t want to go to war with me.  Believe that.”

Wade closed his eyes, gritted his teeth against the pain in his hand and vowed to himself that he would have Logan hunted down, tortured and killed.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Logan
walked for a couple of blocks, entered an alley and took the mag out of McCall’s gun, pocketed it, and returned to the street, to dump the pistol in a mailbox, still wrapped in the tissue.  With any luck it would be handed in to the police, and might have latents and history that would cause McCall grief.

Fifteen minutes later Logan found a small café down a side street near the Amtrak station and ordered a pot of coffee.  He thought that he should cut loose and catch a train heading south, after first phoning Lyle Bumgarner and telling him that the killer was Larry Horton.  He didn’t need the complication of going back.  There was nothing more that he could do.  Problem was that Lyle would want details.  Having one of his deputies accused of murder would not go down well, and Logan couldn’t tell him the truth.  He wasn’t about to mention Morgan and McCall and implicate himself.  Maybe they’d already found the burned out car and the corpse of the hitman.  But if he went back to the Creek what could he do?  He had no proof that Horton was guilty.  And it wasn’t his problem.

By the time he had emptied the pot, Logan knew that he couldn’t just move on and put it behind him.  He was used to dealing with things from beginning to end.  It would eat at his soul if he left it like this.  He sighed.  Strange how one bad thing led to another in his life.  He was basically a loner and enjoyed being so, but other people’s problems always seemed to impact with his desire to just move through life at an easy pace and mind his own business.  There was a conflict within him.  He saw it as a weakness.  He couldn’t ignore the plight of others.  His humanity ordained that if he could help those that did not have the capabilities to help themselves, then he would.  No good questioning it, fighting it or trying to change.  He was what he was.  It struck him that it was just part of the blueprint; genetics.  His character and personality was a result of all his ancestors.  He was a product of the past, his own upbringing, environs, and his life experience to date.

Retrieving his rucksack, Logan wiped and dumped Morgan’s gun and then caught a bus to Greenwood Village, which was next to I-25.  Ten minutes after that he was in the cab of a Peterbilt, talking about football and hunting with a burly trucker.

Kate phoned Clifton at midday, asked how he and Ray were doing, and then to be put through to Logan’s room.

“He’s not here, Kate,”  Clifton said.  “He said he had business to take care of.  I dropped him off next to the interstate early this morning.”

Kate experienced a sinking feeling in her stomach.  Thought that Logan may have just up and gone, and realized that for him to just vanish without saying goodbye saddened her.  If he had moved on, then she couldn’t blame him.  He had most likely only stopped off in Carson Creek to take time out and recharge his batteries, not become involved in a murder case.  But she had thought he cared for her, and was disappointed by his sudden disappearance.

“He said he should be back within forty-eight hours,”  Clifton added.  “Maybe he will be.”

“Thanks, Clifton,”  Kate said.  “Have you heard about the body found out at the old Springdale mine?”

“Uh, no.  What happened?”

“A couple of kids found the gates open so went in to explore.  They came across a burnt-out car with a body in the trunk.”

“Was it someone from the Creek?”

“No idea.  The corpse was impossible to identify.”

“You think it’s linked to what happened to Tanya?”

“No reason why it should be, Clifton.  But it makes you wonder, doesn’t it?  Two unnatural deaths only three miles apart off the same country road.”

“Sure does.  I’ll tell Logan you called when he gets back.”

If he comes back.
“Thanks, Clifton.  Bye for now.”

Kate put on her coat and left the office.  Walked down to the Steamboat and ordered a Reuben sandwich and coffee.  Couldn’t shake Logan from her mind.  He was one of those people that made an instant impression that lasted.  Not just because he was so big and stood out in a crowd, but because he had an aura about him; came across as the type of guy that you could trust with your life.  She hoped that he would come back.  Time spent with him would be something that she knew would be precious, and however fleeting, would be worth having.  Hell, everything was fleeting.  Her late grandmother had once said that one second she was walking down the aisle on her wedding day, thinking that it was the beginning of a journey that was stretching to near infinity in front of her, and what seemed like the next minute fifty years had rushed by, her beloved Walt was beneath the ground, and the party was almost over.

Kate shuddered.  You really did have to live in the moment as far as was possible.  No point looking back from a future still ahead and wishing that you had done things that were beyond your ability to, or that you knew you were now too old to enjoy.  Life took its toll, wore you down like wind on soft rock, and eventually blew you away.  Everyone’s dreams ended up in the ground with them, or scattered with their ashes.

Leaving the diner and lighting a cigarette, Kate attempted to shrug off her maudlin thoughts.  She was discomposed as she walked down Main Street, and would’ve walked straight into the sheriff if he hadn’t sidestepped.

“You okay?”  Lyle said.

“Uh, yes, thanks,”  Kate said, stopping and forcing a smile. “I was in a world of my own.”

“You know where I might find Logan?”

Kate shook her head.  “No idea, Lyle.  Why?”

“You hear about the murder?”

“I heard a burned car was found with a body in it out at the old mine.”

“News travels fast, Kate.  Someone trussed a guy up with barbed wire, popped him in the trunk and torched the whole caboodle.”

“And you think Logan could help you with your investigation?”

“Who knows?  I get the impression that he’s a loose cannon.  His willingness to use violence doesn’t do him any favors.”

“He defended himself against your out of control deputy and two others that attacked him with no provocation.  Does that make him a violent man?”

“It puts him under the microscope, Kate.  I look under every stone.  I’ve just come from the Pinetop.  Clifton says he gave him a lift over to I-25 just after dawn.  Maybe he has something to run away from.”

“Does Logan seem to you the type of man to run away from anything?”

“Is anyone really what they appear to be, Kate?”

“I think so.  Our type of work is prone to make us more cynical of people.”

Lyle smiled. “That’s true,”  he said.  “Be sure to let Logan know I want to talk to him if he shows up or makes contact.”

Kate walked away, back to her office, wondering if Logan was implicated with the murder.  She determined to ask him if he returned to the Creek.

Larry was walking leisurely along the lakeshore, repeatedly throwing a stick in the water for Bama to retrieve.  He was whistling some old Toby Keith song about a big red cup. He thought that everything was taken care of and that he was in the clear.  Earl Dempsey had called and told him about the barbequed corpse at the Springdale mine.  Larry had punched the air and mouthed ‘Yesss’.  Knew that the body would be Logan’s.  Wade had come through for him and got the job done.

As he reached the bungalow his cell chirped.  “Yeah,”  he said.

“It’s Wade.  Get to a public phone and call me.  This is urgent.”

Larry had no time to answer, the connection was broken.  He veered away from the bungalow and climbed in the Silverado.  Bama leapt up over the tailboard and sat behind the cab in the back.  The dog knew that it was not allowed in the front when it was soaking wet.

Larry called Denver from the phone outside the store that was attached to Marshall Downey’s Texaco Station on Kiowa Street.

“Yeah,”  Wade said.

“It’s Larry.  Thanks for―”

“Don’t thank me, Larry.  You need to know that this guy Logan has been to see me.”

“But I thought you’d sent someone to deal with him.”

“I did.  Logan turned it around.  Said that the guy was history.  I had to give up your name, Larry.  Believe me there was no alternative.  He took out one of my best men and stabbed me.  I daresay he’s on his way back to Carson Creek as we speak.  Could be there now.”

“Is there an upside?”

“Yeah.  There are two guys en route.  I want him dealt with as much as you do.  Watch your back until they get to you.”

“Maybe I’d better head for Mexico.  Logan will put it together now that he has my name.”

“Put what together?”

“A mishap.  A girl died.”

“I caught it on TV.  Wouldn’t have thought you were that stupid, Larry.”

“Accidents happen.”

“Especially if you let your dick rule your head.  But Logan will want to deal with you personally.  He can’t go to the law and admit that he killed a guy to get my name.  And if it came to it, I never met the guy, so told him nothin’.”

“Okay Wade.  I’ll stay home and be ready for him.  Tell your guys to phone if they’re comin’ to the house.  I don’t want to start shootin’ up the help.”

“You won’t see them.  They’ll wait for him to make his move and then lift him.”

“Lift him?”

“That’s right.  The bastard hurt me.  I need to see his face when he buys the farm.  Is there anyone in the Creek that he cares about?”

“Yeah, a lawyer, Kate Donner.  Maybe he’s screwin’ her.”

“You got her address?”

“Seventy Cherry Street.  It’s on a small subdivision north of town.  Why?”

“Just another way to hurt the son of a bitch.  I’ll have my boys call in and talk to the broad.”

“Talk?”

Wade chuckled.  “Maybe play Tic-tac-toe on her face with box cutters.”

Logan walked for several miles from the interstate.  He took it as a given that McCall would have contacted Horton and warned him.  The deputy would be expecting him, which made taking him out a far more difficult proposition.  He wasn’t about to underestimate an armed man with law enforcement experience.  Horton had seemed a lot sharper than Carl Purvis; older and wilier.  He would expect an attack through the hours of darkness, so would be disappointed.  Sitting up all night would deplete his level of concentration.  Between three and four a.m. would be a good time to make his move.  That was a period when the vast majority of people were at their lowest ebb.  He had been told once by an army doctor that critically injured and terminally ill patients were at most danger of relinquishing the will to live and expiring in the small hours.

The roadside diner he came to was rustic and set back from the blacktop among tall pines.  Fronting it was a gravel parking lot with only three vehicles in it.  He angled across and climbed the steps to a porch that stretched along the frontage and had rocking chairs and tables set out.  Seemed the wrong time of year for customers to eat outside, but what did he know.  Maybe hikers and other hardy types preferred the smell of the pine trees to fried food.

The interior was like a hunting lodge, with elks’ heads and other trophies adorning the walls.  It wasn’t to his liking.  He preferred wildlife to be roaming free, not decapitated and converted into glass-eyed ornaments.

He ordered coffee and went over to a wall-mounted phone and called Clifton.

“Hi, Logan,”  Clifton said.  “How was your day?”

“Productive.  Do you know where Larry Horton lives?”

“Out at Arrow Lake in a bungalow.  It’s off Buffalo Road, just past a small one-room schoolhouse that’s been boarded up for over twenty years.  Why do you want to see Larry?”

“He may have some information for me,”  Logan said.  “And if any strangers call by looking for me, tell them that I picked up my stuff and left town.  You can say that I planned on hitching south.”

“You in trouble, Logan?”

“No more than usual.  It’ll all work out.”

“Kate phoned me.  She sounded a little disappointed that you weren’t here.”

“Okay, Clifton.  I should be back at Pinetop in the morning.”

Ending the call, Logan sat in a corner under a wall clock, which he deemed preferable to being looked down at by a bear’s or elk’s head.