Side by Side (18 page)

42

Winter Massey felt a visceral sense of relief as he watched Alexa drive off, her lights disappearing as she took the distant curve. The FBI agent part of Alexa was a wall standing between him and any information Click possessed. Winter’s gut told him that Click was the key to the Dockerys. Alexa the FBI agent saw the young man as a citizen wearing the cloak of constitutional rights, and he was protected by her allegiance to her pledge to uphold those laws. She could say she was “off the books” till the cows played cards, but she couldn’t actually be that way. Alexa saw the situation in shades of gray. Weighed against the Dockerys’ lives, Click’s rights didn’t figure into Winter’s formula. When it came to life-and-death situations, Winter saw in jet black lines on bright white paper.

Winter knew what he had to do, and if he succeeded, Alexa would have to learn to live with it. His reward would come when he saw Lucy’s and Elijah’s living faces, and if he had to make a deal with the devil, he would do it. When he looked at Ferny Ernest, he saw a cold-blooded willing participant in a double murder of a woman and her child.

Winter had spent a lot of time talking to a psychiatrist who specialized in post-traumatic stress disorder. He had fully opened himself up to the therapy, unburdened himself as completely as he could, but despite that, he still saw every man and the one woman he had killed. They appeared with regularity in his dreams. All he had to do was close his eyes to see them. If Eleanor had lived, maybe he wouldn’t have taken the forks in the road that he had. If he had never gone to Rook Island on that WITSEC assignment, if he had never met Sean, if he had never felt the thirst for justice and retribution, if he hadn’t wandered into a world of CIA killers and mobsters to save her, things would certainly have worked out differently. He wondered if Alexa suspected that she didn’t know him because the years and experiences had altered the boy he had been with her into the man he had become without her. Their closeness had been a long time ago. Alexa knew it was true.

Alexa was somebody from the past who called once in a blue moon, when she felt nostalgic or got the big blue meanies. She was a Christmas card and a birthday card on Rush’s birthday.

Things change.

Life takes up all your time.

You put off making contact and that becomes emotional distance.

He and Alexa would never again be close friends. He had his heart heavily invested in a place that had no defined role for her.

Intentions not acted upon become regrets.

Intentions acted upon become regrets.

Winter checked the extra magazines, zipped his windbreaker halfway up so he could get to the SIG, put on a Gore-Tex ball cap, and climbed out of his truck.

After crossing the street, he circled the neighboring house and kept to the bushes until he arrived at Click’s house.

Showtime.

43

Serge Sarnov parked the BMW beside a dark SUV, which contained three of Max’s men. He knew real talent when he saw it, and Randall’s guys were bright boys who didn’t require rubber gloves to dive into wet work. Serge lit a cigarette and cut off the headlights. The wipers cleared the windshield at one-second intervals.

“That boy’s all right,” Serge said, meaning Click. In Serge’s opinion the young Smoot was a koi swimming in a sewer with a school of shit-sucking catfish.

“He’s going to tell his father,” Max said. “Soon as he gets over seeing the barrel of your gun, he’ll call Peanut. He doesn’t really believe you can take his old man out of play.”

Serge nodded. “You think I may have overestimated his sense of greed? I don’t think so, but . . .” He tapped the wheel with his fingertips. “That boy has real potential.”

“A lot can happen to complicate this deal. Peanut is smart, vicious, and he could complicate things. That bunch doesn’t operate by any playbook but their own,” Max warned him.

“The Smoots are animals,” Serge said. “Click knows it. I think he will look into the future and make his decision based on that. He isn’t anything like the others.”

“Would you?” Max looked over at the SUV, the dark silhouettes of the killers inside. “Turn on your blood, turn down a known quantity for some money in the future he thinks he can get anyway?”

“He isn’t me,” Serge replied.

“Would you turn on your firm?” Max asked. “If someone came in out of the dark and said, ‘You’re too bright to work for Intermat for chump change. I’m going to take Intermat down. Join me or die.’ ”

Serge didn’t answer. He was considering the value of Click weighed against the potential loss of this deal to his employers. The Smoot end of Laughlin’s empire accounted for huge profits. Tens of millions over the next couple of years. He wanted the Smoots’ action, needed it. Losing it now would put his life on the line, because his employers had already entered the figures into their projections. Laughlin had agreed to watch the Smoots be pushed aside, but the American probably wouldn’t be sorry to see Serge fail. Maybe he should get rid of Click just in case he misjudged the boy. A bird in the hand . . .

“Let’s do this,” Max said. “We can keep Click under wraps until this operation is over. We can take him to the house and after Peanut and the others are done in, he’ll be easy to bring over.”

Serge said, “I was going to suggest the same course of action.” Randall was indeed a very smart man.

“After the Dockerys are dead, we can deal with Peanut and his family and let the trail end at their corpses.”

“I’m listening,” Serge said.

Max laid out a plan that brought a smile to Serge’s lips. He inhaled and considered it. Max Randall never disappointed. He had a strategic mind and made life-and-death decisions effortlessly. He would do fine for the firm as long as he played it straight, and Serge was sure he was intelligent enough to do just that.

“Take two men, get Click, and I will meet you all back at the house. Use whatever force you deem necessary to find out if he made any calls to his father, but keep his brain intact. That part of him we need in good working order. Use your best judgment.”

“I’ll handle it,” Max said, slipping from the car.

Serge dropped the window long enough to flick his lit cigarette out into the wetness of the night.

44

Winter Massey saw that Click was still sitting where he’d been earlier—in the recliner, still tapping his sock feet to the music, watching naked girls on a stage gyrate to rock tunes the dancers were too young to have listened to growing up. The choice of musical accompaniment was more for its nostalgic value to the middle-aged skin-worshipping congregation that regularly attended their local branches of the First Church of the Brass Pole. People who were younger than the men who actually put donations inside the dancers’ garters probably watched the DVDs and videotapes without listening to the music.

Winter wondered if Click had called his father to tell him about Sarnov’s nocturnal visit and job offer, or if he was weighing that offer while the Dockerys were awaiting death. It really didn’t make any difference. Winter looked in at the large TV screen, frowned, and circled the house. As he passed the rolling garbage can in the shed, he spotted the corner of a pizza box sticking out from under the lid. He pulled out the box, strode around to the front door, took out his SIG, and rang the doorbell. He pulled the bill of his cap down to shadow his eyes.

He didn’t hear Click coming, but the porch light came on and the front door opened enough so that Winter could see that the young Smoot had put on a plaid bathrobe over his T-shirt and boxers. The chain on the door was a substantial model, which might not give without allowing Click a chance to fire through the wood. This kid would probably have some sort of weapon at hand, especially given the earlier Sarnov/Randall visit. With a little luck on Click’s side and a decent-caliber round, Winter might find himself lying on his back bleeding out—an armed home-invading stranger. Taking the chance wasn’t necessary.

“What?” Click growled through the crack.

“Pizza,” Winter said. The rain striking the concrete walkway behind him helped mute his voice.

“I didn’t order any pizza.”

“Fourteen dollars and twenty-six cents.”

“I didn’t order it.”

“If you’re standing inside two-two-one-five you did.”

“It isn’t my pizza. I got one from you last night. Maybe your cheap-ass computer put me back on for one tonight.”

“Fourteen twenty-six cash or check. It’s getting cold.”

“It was only like twelve bucks last night.”

Winter shrugged. “Take it for twelve,” he said.

“I didn’t order it.”

“Fine. Ten then,” Winter said. “It’ll just go in the garbage.”

“What’s on it?”

“How should I know? What’d you order on it?” Winter asked, trying not to laugh. Young Click wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to eat pizza just because he didn’t order it.

“Ten bucks. And that’s tip included.”

“Sure.”

“Hang there. I’ll go get you the money.”

When Click returned, Winter heard the sound of something heavy being set down, and knew it was a gun Click was putting on a table by the door so he could open it and pay for the pizza. Winter had been right not to try and muscle his way in.

Click opened the door with the bill in his hand, looking hungrily down at the pizza box. He didn’t raise his eyes until Winter handed the box over and Click realized it was empty. When he looked up at Winter, there was mild confusion in his eyes, which changed instantly to fear when the deliveryman raised a gun and aimed it directly at Click’s chest.

Click backed up, hands still clenching the empty box. Winter entered, lifted a blue-steel revolver from the narrow table cluttered with junk mail. He opened the revolver’s chamber, tilted its barrel up, and let the rounds drop into a half-filled trash can before tossing the gun on a stack of newspapers in the corner.

“Wait a minute!” Click said. “You’re robbing
me?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Do I know you?” Click’s brain was racing, trying to sort through its memory banks to figure out where he’d seen Winter before.

“Where
would
you know me from?” Winter asked him.

“I don’t know, but . . .” His eyes were darting back and forth between Winter’s face and the SIG. He seemed more curious than frightened. “Have we met before?”

“Maybe you remember me from the Westin this afternoon. That’s where I saw you.”

Click’s expression changed, a smile growing as he remembered. “Yeah, I saw you there. Why are you here?”

“Why were you there?”

“I was meeting an exotic dancer. She didn’t show.”

“I don’t think so, Slick,” Winter said. “I think you followed somebody there.”

“It’s Click, not Slick. No, I didn’t follow anybody anywhere.” Click sat on the arm of the recliner, tossed the box down, and crossed his skinny arms. “You’re what, FBI?”

“Why would you think that? The FBI only deals with federal crimes. You committed any of those? Extortion, auto theft, crossing state lines in the commission, Mann Act, drug trafficking, wire fraud, insurance fraud, spying, credit card scams?”

“No.” Click’s smile widened.

“Who did you follow to the Westin, Click? Or should I call you Ferny Ernest?”

“You don’t have a warrant, do you?”

“Why would I need a warrant?”

“To come in here.”

“You opened the door to me.”

“I know the law. You forced your way in by pointing a gun at me.”

“Knowing your rights will come in real handy when the cops ask if you understand your rights.”

“You know who my lawyer is?” Click blustered.

“It’s probably Ross Laughlin. Your father’s lawyer and crime boss or partner, depending on who you ask.”

The smile melted. Click was trying not to look worried, and he wasn’t terrible at it.

“Answer my original question,” Winter said. “Who were you following? And by the way, I already know the answer.”

“Who was I following?”

“Judge Fondren.”

A sudden tic almost closed Click’s right eye.

“I don’t even know who that is.”

“You know very well who he is. And you know his daughter and her baby were kidnapped, because members of your family did it at your father’s direction. That’s why you were following the judge, and that’s why you thought I might be with the FBI.”

“That’s crazy. My father is a legitimate businessman.”

“Kidnapping’s a federal crime that carries the death penalty for everybody involved in the conspiracy . . . if the Dockerys are murdered. If they aren’t, it could be probation for somebody who was only following a federal judge around and calling in that information to others. There’s always phone records, positioning locators on cell towers, voice-pattern identification, surveillance cameras, and wiretaps all together pinpointing who did what to whom and where.”

“Arrest me then,” Click challenged, smiling again. “You got proof, take me in. I know my rights.”

“Arrest you? You aren’t listening to me. I am not a cop or an FBI agent. I couldn’t arrest you if I wanted to. You’re missing the whole point.”

“What is the point?”

“I don’t have a badge, so you don’t have any rights. If you tell me where the Dockerys are, you’ll live. If you don’t, I’m going to move straight up the Smoot family tree, clipping off every diseased limb I come to until one of your kinfolk is smart enough to tell me.”

“You don’t scare me.”

“I know you’ve been threatened by people with guns before.”

“I sure have.”

“You think Sarnov would have shot you if you hadn’t gone belly-up and agreed to join up with his firm?”

This tic fully closed Click’s eye.

“Not fifteen minutes ago, Serge Sarnov sat right there on the couch and said that your family abducted the Dockerys and that they are going to kill them. I have it on audio and video tape.”

“Why would something some Russian I never laid eyes on before says to me mean anything? The man broke into my house.”

“I’m going to ask you nicely where Lucy Dockery and her boy are, and you’re going to tell me. If they are where you say, I’ll turn you loose. If they aren’t, I’m going to ask again, but not nicely.”

Something flickered beyond Click’s right shoulder. Max Randall’s illuminated face seemed to be floating out in the darkness. As a gun rose to Randall’s shoulder, Winter kicked out, sweeping Click’s feet out from under him and falling to the floor as he did so.

There was a flash outside.

The window shattered and large fragments of glass blew into the room and showered the two prone figures.

Winter knew immediately that the weapon was an MP5-SD. There’d been a total lack of sound except for the thuds of the rounds punching through Sheetrock and the high-pitched whines of the ricocheting subsonic 9mm rounds. Grabbing Click’s ankle, he dragged the skinny young man into the hallway. As he pulled the boy, a second shooter opened up and the recliner spewed chunks of cotton and foam rubber as rounds chewed into it.

One of the shooters whistled, and Winter heard their feet as they fled across the stone patio.

“Want to live, don’t move a muscle,” Winter ordered, and got to his feet.

Gun in hand, Winter vaulted through the empty window frame and sprinted around the house in the opposite direction the assailants had taken, figuring they might be lying in ambush around the corner.

As he rounded Click’s house, Winter saw their running shapes and aimed at them, but there were too many houses behind the fast-moving men, and he didn’t want the immediate attention that firing a gun in this neighborhood would bring. The two shooters jumped into an SUV parked half a block away. It roared off, leaving Winter standing on the sidewalk in front of Click’s house, pelted by the rain.

He remembered Click’s Smith & Wesson and the rounds in the trash can. “Christ,” he mumbled and ran back toward the house, praying he wouldn’t have to kill the kid, or take a round in his chest for losing track of the fact that Click was the enemy.

The front door was standing wide open, and Winter knew he hadn’t left it that way. He’d been flanked.