Next of Kin (37 page)

‘Maybe. That it? He didn’t say anything more?’

Finn paused before answering. ‘He did,’ he said finally. He looked up at Long. Long tried to read the lawyer’s face, but it was inscrutable.

‘What else did he say?’

‘He said he was going to finish it.’

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

The first one was easy. Sal Brancaccio knew what he was doing, but he assumed he would be the hunter, not the hunted. He assumed that he would follow Coale into the warehouse
office, undetected. An added layer of insurance, that was all. He had no idea that Coale would be waiting for him.

Once he felt sure that no one else was coming, Coale made his way down the block, staying out of sight. He slipped across the street on the other side of McDougal’s building and walked
around it from the back, came up behind Brancaccio, who was peeking around the corner, keeping his eyes on the front door. His gun was out, in his hand. He stood still, behind the stack of crates,
waiting.

The rain helped. It was coming down hard and fast now, and the noise was thunderous, particularly out by the water. The kind of a rain you had to yell through to be heard. Brancaccio had on a
slick dark rain hat that covered his ears. Coale knew that inside the hat all he could hear was the amplified echo of raindrops off oilskin. Sal was good, but not that good.

He never heard a thing, had no idea at all until the knife slid through his throat. One motion, fast and silent. Up under the edge of the jawbone, pulling back and across to make sure that the
cut was deep enough and that any struggle would only drive the knife deeper.

There was no resistance. Just a soft gurgle as Sal’s hand went to his throat. Coale couldn’t see the man’s face, but he didn’t need to. He’d done this often enough
that he knew exactly what he would see. The eyes going wide in terror, the mouth gaping open, the face bloating from lack of breath. Then the line would appear on the throat, thin and dark at
first, like a giant paper cut. Any motion, though, would cause the separation, and the blood would flow quickly then, out over the lip of the cut, down the neck, soaking the shirt, running down the
chest until the legs would no longer support the body.

It was over quickly. It always was. Sal Brancaccio was dead before his knees hit the gravel. Coale stepped back from the body, looked up toward the car. He gave Brancaccio no further thought.
He’d chosen his life. That was more than Coale had been allowed. Besides, there was still more work to be done.

The driver posed more of a challenge. The car served as a protective metal cage, and it was too difficult to attack with a knife unless you were sitting in the seat behind him. There was no way
that Coale could get there without alerting him. The camera mounted at the top of the building, trained on the front door, complicated things further. Coale assumed McDougal was watching the closed
circuit television feed of that camera from inside. Waiting to see what Coale would do.

He walked back around the other side of the building, up the street. He climbed into his car and drove into the lot, parked his car in between the front door to the building and McDougal’s
car, facing in the opposite direction to the other car so that the driver’s side doors were next to each other. It would effectively block any view the camera might have of McDougal’s
driver.

He opened his door and stepped out. He patted his jacket pockets as though he were looking for something, tapped on the driver’s window. The driver looked at him curiously for a moment,
then rolled down the window.

‘Yeah?’ he said.

‘I’m meeting Eamonn inside,’ Coale said. He kept his voice as close to friendly as he could. Conspiratorial, even.

‘I know,’ the driver said.

‘You got a match?’

The driver frowned, looking at the rain as it dribbled off the top of the car door onto his sleeve. ‘You’re gonna smoke in this shit?’

Coale shook his head. ‘Inside.’

The driver patted his breast pocket absentmindedly, reached over to the seat next to him. His eyes only left Coale for a second, but that was all he needed. Coale moved without hesitation, his
hand sliding out of his jacket, the Beretta nine-millimeter with an AAC M9-SD silencer finding its target. He pulled the trigger twice before the driver could even look back. Two shots to the head.
Both punctuated with the loud, dull thud from the silencer. In the rain it would make no difference. The sound wouldn’t carry through the building walls. Unsilenced, the shot would have
sounded the alarm, but as it was, those within the building would have no clue that anything was wrong. He stood up, gave a salute as though saying thank you to the dead driver, just in case the
camera could see any part of him. Then he walked around his car and over to the front entrance.

He tried the door. Usually, when he met with McDougal after hours at the office, McDougal left the door open for him. He was guessing that would be the case tonight, but there was no way of
knowing; this night was different from others in so many ways. It would be easier if the door was open. If McDougal was forced to open the door himself, he might look out to check in with his
driver, in which case Coale would have to react quickly. If it came to that, he would deal with it, but it would be better to make it inside the building first. It would be cleaner that way.

The doorknob turned easily in his grasp, and the door pushed in. Halfway there, he thought. Two down, two to go. Then he could turn his attention to the last of his tasks. He stepped through the
door.

McDougal was watching the closed-circuit feed. He saw Coale pull in, up next to McDougal’s own car. He could just make out the top of Coale’s head as he bent down
to ask Smitty, McDougal’s driver and part-time bodyguard, a question. He stood up straight after less than a couple of seconds, walked to the door, then disappeared inside.

‘He’s here,’ McDougal said to Jacobs. The man was standing next to McDougal, watching the same video. ‘Get into position.’

Jacobs walked to the door that led out to the warehouse. ‘I’ll be behind the door.’

McDougal nodded. ‘Wait for a few minutes after he gets here, then make the call. You understand? Don’t do anything unless it sounds like there is a problem. I need to know who else
he’s working for. If he won’t tell me when we’re alone, then you and I can spend some time with him and convince him to talk. I want the chance to get it out of him myself
first.’

Jacobs opened the door and slipped out, closing the door behind him. The door was cheap and flimsy. Jacobs would hear everything that went on in the office. So would Sal. McDougal had told him
to follow Coale in, and to listen at the door that led back out to the reception area. Plus Smitty was out in the car. The three of them could handle one man, even someone with Coale’s
reputation. In McDougal’s experience, reputations tended to be overblown. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d met someone who’d lived up to their hype.

He sat down in the chair behind his desk to wait.

Coale walked slowly, carefully through the reception area. There was a closet, and he eased it open to make sure it was empty. He glanced behind the desk. No one. Four doors
opened off the narrow hallway that led to McDougal’s office. One led back out to the reception area. One was a bathroom. One was the entrance to McDougal’s office, and the last one went
out to the warehouse. He peered into the bathroom; it was empty. That left just the office and the warehouse.

He took out his gun, unscrewed the silencer and put it in his pocket. Accuracy and speed were at a premium over quiet now. He put the gun in his shoulder holster, kept the holster unclipped, the
gun balanced, barely held, ready to be pulled out. He knocked on the door to McDougal’s office.

‘Come in,’ McDougal called.

Coale pushed against the door and stepped inside. McDougal was sitting at his desk, one elbow resting on the desktop, the other in his lap, hidden. Coale looked at him for a moment, surveyed the
room. There was no one else there. It was a square space without closets. A sofa was set against the wall, but there was no room behind that for a grown man to hide. That left only the door that
led out to the warehouse. It opened inward, the hinges on the far side.

At least he had a good idea where everyone was now.

‘Congratulations,’ McDougal said.

Coale moved into the room, stood in front of the sofa so that he was on the other side of the hinges on the door to the warehouse. ‘For what?’

‘A job well done. I just spoke to Kevin.’

Coale controlled his breathing. ‘Where is he?’

‘He’s at his apartment.’ Coale could feel McDougal watching him, evaluating his reaction. He didn’t care. He’d played the game for too long to give himself away.
‘He’s going to call us in a few minutes. He sounds more like a man than he ever has. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.’

Coale kept his face still, showing nothing. No surprise, no emotion. ‘It sometimes happens that way.’

‘It does. A man’s first kill. The realization that you have the power over life and death is a powerful thing. I remember my first, back in Ireland. I was a child, no more than
fourteen. Tommy O’Dea. A local boy who owed me money.’ McDougal laughed, an evil chuckle. ‘I was scared wet; I didn’t want to do it. Once it was done, though, I knew I could
do anything. There was nothing I wanted that I couldn’t have if I set my mind to it. That’s when I left for the States.’

Coale was looking McDougal in the eyes, but he was paying attention to the hand under the desk out of his peripheral vision.

‘Do you remember your first?’ McDougal asked.

Coale thought about his mother, dying in childbirth. Bleeding out at the same moment she gave him life. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t.’

‘No?’ McDougal sounded surprised. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I guess when you’ve sent as many off as you have, it doesn’t even make an impression anymore, does
it? Like swatting a bug to you. How many has it been? Twenty?’

Coale said nothing.

‘Fifty? A hundred?’

‘We have some things to discuss,’ Coale said.

‘We do.’ McDougal sat forward in his chair. His hand stayed beneath the desk. ‘Complications, you said on the phone.’

Coale nodded slowly. ‘Complications. The lawyer said he didn’t give any information over to the police.’

McDougal let out a sarcastic grunt. ‘We have him on camera breaking into the place, coming out with the files. We know that he did. He was trying to save his ass.’

‘He didn’t deny breaking in,’ Coale said. ‘He said that he only gave over material on other people. Nothing on you. He said it was the only way he could keep Kevin from
doing time.’

‘Did you believe him?’

Coale nodded slowly.

‘Wouldn’t that be ironic?’ McDougal’s face turned serious. ‘You killed him anyway, right? You didn’t let him go, did you?’

‘Kevin killed him. You talked to Kevin already, right?’

A shadow of doubt crossed McDougal’s face. ‘Yeah. I talked to him. He’s going to be calling back in a few minutes.’ He was still scrutinizing Coale as he spoke.

‘So you said.’

The silence hung heavy between them for a long moment. ‘Any other complications?’ McDougal asked.

Coale shook his head. ‘None.’

‘So, what else is there to talk about?’

‘I’m out,’ Coale said. ‘I’m done.’

‘I hired you to do a job.’

‘You did. And I did the job.’

‘Did you, now?’

‘I did,’ Coale said. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, so that his right hand rested on the gun in his shoulder holster under his jacket. ‘You hired me to take care of
the situation with the Connor woman. I did that. The police found nothing. I took care of the situation in New Hampshire. I took care of the lawyer. I’m done.’

‘The police are asking questions about me. They’re asking questions about my connections to Buchanan.’ McDougal drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘That was what I was
trying to avoid.’

‘Maybe you should have been more careful,’ Coale said.

‘Or maybe you’ve not finished the fuckin’ job.’

‘I’m finished with the job. I’m finished working for you.’

‘Are you? You working for someone else now, is that it? Maybe our good senator has offered you more? Maybe you think you can sell me out and save his royal ass?’ The fingers stopped
drumming. ‘Is that what you think?’

‘I think you watch too many movies. I think we’re done.’

The phone on the table rang. Neither man looked at it. Their eyes were locked; neither would look away. McDougal reached out and picked up the receiver without even glancing at it, held it up to
his ear. ‘Hello?’ There was a pause. ‘Kevin,’ he said, still focused on Coale. ‘He’s right here.’ McDougal held the phone out to Coale. Coale didn’t
reach for it. His arms stayed folded, his hand inching toward his gun; he wrapped his fingers around the grip. ‘No?’ McDougal said. ‘You don’t want to talk to
him?’

Coale said nothing. Every muscle in his body was tense, ready.

McDougal let the phone hang down from his hand. ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ he said. ‘You killed my son.’

They both moved at the same time. Coale brought his hand out of his jacket just as McDougal’s arm came up from beneath the desk. The guns were in motion. It was like a tribute to the Old
West, except that McDougal was sitting, putting him at a disadvantage. It was a critical mistake. They pulled their triggers within milliseconds of each other. Not enough time to be measured by
standard commercial timers, but enough to make a difference. Coale’s shot took McDougal in the forehead even as McDougal was firing. McDougal’s head was thrown back and the momentum of
his shot was affected. It wasn’t enough to prevent him from getting the shot off, but it was sufficient to disrupt his aim. The slug that would have hit Coale in the center of the chest
caught him instead in the muscle of his left shoulder.

The two shots firing at once created an explosion that was deafening in the tiny space. Coale ignored the sound, though, just as he ignored the pain shooting through his shoulder. He spun toward
the door to the warehouse, ducking slightly to his left as he did.