Murder My Love (Kindle Books Mystery and Suspense Crime Thrillers Series Book 3) (5 page)

Weaved into the silence before dawn, I hear the insufferable tick-tock, tick-tock the round fat table clock on top of a kitchen shelf makes. It's one of those cheap, sturdy, pre-electronic mechanical contraptions made of wheels, sprockets, and springs, with a rubicund figure on its face that I cannot distinguish too well, from where I stand.

Rene stares at me like a modest statue, shaking in his boots.

"We've known each other a long time, Rene. Let's not mess up badly! Once I touch you, things we'll never be same."

Things will never be the same whatever happens, I judge. But let him think this way. Let him absorb the power of my illusions.

"But if you tell me everything, and I'm not kidding you. You tell me everything fair and square, and you know what? When you do that, I'll decide your fate, whether you live or die. I'll make the decision based on what's better for the job like I always do, and what's better for me. But what I can promise you right away Rene, is that it will be quick and if you do as I say nobody else will have to suffer."

Taking into account the probability that he's involved one way or another in the murder of my brother and an attempted murder of me, chances are he'll die. I’d need a really good reason to let him live.

"About a month ago Jack Soldi called," he begins. "He needed shooters for a big operation on the continent. He called back again three days ago. This second time he's in a big panic. I honestly think what happened is that he messed up the first time. I honestly think he didn't know. He had no idea his contract involved your brother. Now you had come over to bury your brother and he didn't want you back into the wild. He ordered a big operation, money was no object, but he wanted to be sure you don't get out of there," his voice wavers. "… alive. I told him not to count on it, and that it couldn't be done at such short notice. 'It doesn't matter', he told me, 'Do the best you can!' Which now, in retrospect, I guess, was not good enough."

"You sold me for a pot of gold, old pal."

"I didn't have a choice, you know that. You don't play with the likes of Soldi. He's got the biggest operation in North America; now he's expanding his operations on the continent. You turn him down and you start contemplating your own mortality.

"I know you are going to kill me. I don't blame you. But keep in mind that you cannot beat Jack. He's an organization. No individual, no matter how skillful, no matter how adroit, how smart, how intelligent, can face an organization like his. Keep also in mind that Jack had no idea, when he ordered the operation, that it was your brother who he was going to hit. Once he found out, killing you became simply a matter of business."

"Maybe you're right, but I hope that maybe you're wrong.

"Now tell me again about the phone call."

"Around 12:30 I got a ring from Soldi's daughter. She called to warn me that you were back, free in the wild and with no controls. She told me to watch my back."

Lana … Lana … Lana.

I knew it from the start. How I wished it wasn't so.

But this can wait until I get back.

My throat is already dry as I drink the last coffee dregs. I froze up all inside when he told me about her, and how hopeless it all now seems, but this is not important. Not while I'm on the job.

There is no joy in my laughter, "Now you better just start thinking about the irony of your situation, Rene. Because if I let you live and Jack will find out, he'll be sure to kill you. He'll probably kill you anyway, on principle, no matter what he knows, even if you shush. He'll know you turned him in, once I get on his trail. So you see, Rene, I have only one advice for you, that you pray for my health and my success, pray hard and pray often."

I let him live, for now, and take my chances since the news of his death would raise an immediate alarm.

I drive back through the drizzle still trickling down, praying I'll extract a little more happiness back home until the awful truth will explode in all our faces.

At six o’clock in the morning, the road gets livelier. People drive to work in their small sedans. The big trucks roll noisily crossing over the lanes. I move into the slow lane and I stick there.

I need to think, and after I think of this, I have to start thinking about what I'll tell Lana, and what Lana will want to tell me.

But first and foremost, I need to think about Jack.

I met him about three years ago when he had just started to grow his business. He wanted to hire me.

"Jack, Jack, Jack … what mess have you gotten us into?"

I didn't like the man; I didn’t like his grating smile and pretend friendliness. I didn't like the way he didn't pay attention. Jack is the type of man that listens only to himself. And he laughed too much. And he was trying too hard to be ingratiating.

I couldn't blame him for being a sociopath; that goes without saying in my line of work. When I told him that I was a solitary wolf and I liked to work on my own he chuckled.

These kinds of invitations … you know … in my world, these kinds of invitations … they are not too smart to turn down.

But I am a free man and I don’t want anybody's leash 'round my neck. Especially not a scumbag's like Jack.

It was about the time Caro had disappeared from my life and the world had begun to change around me, and not in the prettiest sense of the word. A few months later, I found out about the family I didn't know I had.

I was not sure about my path in life.

I feel something is wrong as soon as I get home. I take the world as it is, never yielded to illusions. But when something happens in your life, and is perfect… I don't believe the old stories. I don’t believe, for instance, that everyone has somebody somewhere just waiting to be found. Somebody that you have to search for, and you might find if you're lucky; somebody that is perfect only for you, your other half. No, nothing like that exists. And I strongly believed it until I met Lana.

The quiet plenitude I felt before and the sense of well-being are both gone. There was a balance in the world that existed for me and now is no more.

This is how I know Lana has left.

I hurry to the entranceway and I rush inside. I run up the stairs. I look in my room, come back into the hallway and search through hers. I go into all the other places where she could possibly be and go through them one by one.

Finally, I stumble into the kitchen and almost knock down Germaine, who's making breakfast.

I try to speak, but I'm voiceless. The only sound I can utter is "Lana."

"She left half an hour ago," Germaine says.

"Did she say anything about where she was going?"

"No."

"Did she leave any message for me?"

"No."

I book the first flight to New York, a solitary flight. I buy my usual two seats in first class, and this time I don't invite any pretty girl to share them with me. And the only question I mull in my head for the full six hours of the flight is how I approach Jack Soldi and how I bring him down.

--

It's half a year later now.

I sit on my elbows and knees on top of a five-hundred feet cliff in Saint-Elmo-by-the-Sea, with my high power binoculars glued to my eyes. To my right with angry waves the ocean roars. In the deserted parking lot which runs along the beach, I can see my car. In the distance it looks like a toy. The winding footpath that ends at my feet will take me down to it in about fifteen minutes.

I watch a big mansion, a chalet really, formidable in size, at a distance of about half a mile; this being the reason why I need the powerful binoculars. The structure looks more like a fortress, with its thick steel-reinforced cement walls and bullet-proof windows, a gloomy fantasy issued from the dark imagination of Jack.

I've been inside once, less than two years ago, invited to a party, and I never plan to go back. An assault against the place seems foolhardy in the extreme. Once you get inside, you become a prisoner unless you can fly. But I wouldn't really give you a fighting chance even if you were a bird of the air.

Last spring when I returned, it was impossible to approach Jack. He had retreated in a defensive mode. He must have spent a fortune on the detectives and bodyguards who were swarming in all directions: ahead of him, behind and at his sides, wherever he went. I often wondered how he could stand it.

I had to bide my time.

Four months after my brother was killed, the waves of the Atlantic dragged a body to shore, five miles south of Bridgeport. The body structure, as well as the weight, height and musculature of the cadaver, were similar to mine. What's more, the police retrieved documents containing one of my identities, in the black plastic wallet found inside one of the dead man's pockets. They were remarkably well preserved, thanks to the material. The body could not be identified one way or another, but it served notice to Jack to stop being afraid and start living the rest of his short life.

It's hard to live with fear, fear of instant death; it's hard to spend your life surrounded by dozens of bodyguards, armed to the teeth, watching your every move. Those five months couldn't have been too easy on Jack. His quality of life must have suffered; his enjoyment of his trade fading away.

I was mostly away during this time, searching for Lana, but I spent the rest of it watching Jack.

Things slowly quieted down in the Soldi Empire, retrieving their regular tempo. Life returned to normal while the threads of his own were getting shorter by the day. But he remained blissfully unaware. Which is a good thing. Good for his mental health.

While I wait on top of the bluff, I pay special attention to the road. A black limousine comes every morning at 8:30 am to take Jack, accompanied by his two bodyguards, into town.

The chauffeur gets petted by one of his goons, who then gets into the front seat, looks around for anything unusual and moves to the passenger side once he's satisfied with his search. The other goon opens the back door of the limo, takes a peek inside and gets in. He is followed by Jack.

Zingor, the limo driver, is an original character. At first, I thought he was a pantomime artist, working with caricature.

I later found out that he was a real person, a recent Zingovian immigrant, as well as a former chauffeur to the stars of the young Zingovian Republic.

He spends most of his evenings in his favorite drinking establishment, the Zingo Bar, boasting about the old glory of the Regency, when he used to drive dignitaries of the old regime to their palatial estates in the countryside on weekends.

It's eight thirty and the black limo doesn't fail to materialize. But there is a change in plans.

For today, I get down my mountain.

I get into my car, pay my bill and exit the parking lot. I get on the highway and move into the fast lane.

The black limo is rolling steadily a hundred fifty feet ahead of me and I don't care. For a full week, I followed it religiously, day by day, minute by minute. By now, the list of Zingor's customers is etched into my brain. I memorized his daily itinerary to the minute.

But today I'm not interested in Jack's limo. Today I'm interested in Jack's chauffeur.

I merge onto the 505 Freeway, cross the Saint-Elmo Bridge and zoom into town.

I find parking on the street, feed the meter, and spend the rest of the time until the black limo comes into view, lounging comfortably with a glass of sherry and a cup of mocha cappuccino at an outside table of the Café Promenade. I chose this place because it happens to be across the street from Jack's Office, which is bordered on one side by the Bank of the Pacificus and by a Beauty Salon on the other side.

I exchange my binoculars for a highly pixelated digital camera. Today I'm shooting pictures. Not Jack's pictures, I know the bastard well enough, like an ugly wart that threatens to become infected, and I'm already sick of his mug. Today's frames will all feature Zingor, my new Zingovian amigo.

I start taking his pictures as soon as he gets out of the limo and I can get a good view. He says goodbye to Jack and company, but I follow him on his itinerary and snap a few more frames whenever he stops.

I met a killer once, a long time ago, a man who changed his appearance before every hit. One day he made a bad mistake when he mistook my girlfriend for his next target. But in this job, sooner or later, we all make a bad mistake. He died in a park that very day, and I inherited his PO Box, which kind of started me in the business.

But aside from his main avocation, which was stamp collecting; this man had a particular talent. Using theatrical makeup, he could paint his face and become a totally different person. A priceless gift for somebody keen on preserving his anonymity.

I don't have his gift. But I know somebody who does. Her name is Gigi. She is my East Coast broker. I've known her for five years and a bit, and I believe we're rather pleased which each other.

I give Gigi a buzz after making sure I have everything I need from Zingor.

She will see me.

Gigi has a beauty salon out of town, in the River Creek Mall, located at about twenty miles from my current location.