The Reapers: A Thriller-CP-7 (21 page)

“And Bliss?” asked Louis.

“I have heard nothing.”

“Billy Boy was driving the car on the day that we took out Leehagen’s son.”

“I am aware of that.”

“Now he’s dead, and Ballantine’s gone—dead, according to Hoyle. If those killings are linked to Leehagen, then only you and I are left.”

“Well, then, the sooner we clear this whole affair up, the happier we will both be.” Gabriel stood.

“I’ll be in touch when I have more to offer,” he said. “You can make your final decision then.”

He left the same way that he had entered. Louis remained seated, considering all that he had been told. It was more than he had before he arrived, yet it was still not enough. From his perch on a garage roof, Angel followed Gabriel’s progress, watching as the sinister old man walked slowly up the alley, watching as he reached the street and looked left and right, as though undecided about which path beckoned him, watching as an old Bronco with out-of-state plates passed slowly, watching as flames leapt in the darkness of its interior, watching as the old man bucked and clouds of blood shot from his back as the bullets exited, watching as he folded to the ground, the redness pooling around him, the life seeping from him with every failing beat of his heart…

Watching, feeling shock, but no regret.

“He’ll live. For now.”

Louis and Angel were back in their apartment. It was late afternoon. The call had come through to Louis. Angel did not know from whom, and he did not ask. He only listened as his lover repeated what he had been told.

“He’s a tough old bastard,” said Angel.

There was no warmth to his tone. Louis recognized its absence.

“He would have let you die, if it suited him. It wouldn’t have cost him a moment’s thought.”

“No, that’s not true,” said Louis. “He would have spared a moment for me.” He stood at the window, his face reflected in the glass. Angel, damaged himself, wondered how much more damaged in turn this man whom he loved could be to retain such affection for a creature like Gabriel. Perhaps it was true that all men love their fathers, no matter how terrible the things they do to their sons: there is a part of us that remains forever in debt to those responsible for our existence. After all, Angel had wept when the news of his own father’s death had reached him, and Angel’s father had sold him to pedophiles and sexual predators for drinking money. Angel sometimes thought that he had wept all the harder because of it, wept for all that his father had not been as much as for what he was.

“If Hoyle is right, then Leehagen found Ballantine,” said Louis. “Maybe Ballantine gave him Gabriel.”

“I thought he always insulated himself,” said Angel.

“He did, but they knew each other, and there was probably only one layer, one buffer, between Ballantine and Gabriel, if that. It looks like Leehagen found it, and from there made the final connection.”

“What now?” asked Angel.

“We go back to Hoyle, then I kill Leehagen. This won’t stop otherwise.”

“Are you doing it for your sake, or for Gabriel’s?”

“Does it matter?” Louis replied.

And in that moment, had he been there to witness it, Gabriel might have seen something of the old Louis, the one he had nurtured and coaxed into being, shining darkly.

Benton called from a phone box on Roosevelt Avenue.

“It’s done,” he said. Benton’s wrist and shoulder ached, and he was sure that the latter had begun to bleed again. He could feel dampness and warmth there. He should not have taken it upon himself to fire the shots at the old man, not with the wounds that he had received at the auto shop, but he was angry, and anxious to make up for his failure on that occasion.

“Good,” said Michael Leehagen. “You can come home now.” He hung up the phone and walked down the hall to the bedroom in which his father lay sleeping. Michael watched over him for a couple of minutes, but did not wake him. He would tell him of what had transpired when he awoke.

Michael had no idea who the old man really was. Ballantine had spoken of him only in the most general of terms. It was enough that he had been involved in his brother’s slaying, and was meeting Louis, the man directly responsible for his brother’s death. The attack would be one more incentive for Louis to strike back, one more reason for him to travel north. At last Michael had begun to understand his father’s reasoning: blood called for blood, and it should be spilled where his brother lay at uneasy rest. He still believed that his father was overestimating the potential threat posed by Louis and his partner once they were lured north, and there had been no need to involve the third party, the hunter, the one named Bliss, but his father was not to be dissuaded, and Michael had given up the argument almost as soon as it had begun. It didn’t matter. It was his father’s money and, ultimately, his father’s revenge. Michael would acquiesce to the old man’s wishes, for he loved his father very much, and when he was dead, all that was once his would become his son’s.

Michael Leehagen might have been a king in waiting, but he was loyal to the old ruler.
CHAPTER ELEVEN

THEY DIDN’T GIVE HOYLE notice of their arrival. They simply turned up in the lobby after hours and told one of the security staff to inform Simeon that Mr. Hoyle had visitors. The guard didn’t seem unusually troubled by the request. Angel guessed that, given the fact of Hoyle’s residency in the building, and his reluctance to face the world on its own terms, the guards had grown used to human traffic at odd hours.

“What name should I give?” asked the guard.

Louis did not answer. He merely stood beneath the lens of the nearest camera, his face clearly visible.

“I think he’ll know who it is,” said Angel.

The call was made. Three minutes went by, during which an attractive woman in a tight-fitting black skirt and white blouse passed through the lobby and eyed Louis appreciatively. Almost imperceptibly, except to Angel, Louis’s posture changed.

“You just preened,” said Angel.

“I don’t think so.”

“Yeah, you did. You stood straighter. You became straight. You de-gayed.”

The doors of the private elevator opened in the lobby, and the guard gestured at them to enter. They walked toward it.

Louis shrugged. “A man likes to be appreciated.”

“I think you’re confused about your sexuality.”

“I got an eye for beauty,” said Louis. He paused. “So does she.”

“Yeah,” said Angel, “but she’ll never love you as much as you do.”

“It is a burden,” said Louis, as the doors closed.

“You’re telling me.”

Only Simeon was waiting for them in the lobby when they arrived at Hoyle’s penthouse. He was dressed in black pants and a long-sleeved black shirt. This time, the gun that he wore was clearly visible: a Smith & Wesson 5906, housed in a Horseshoe holster.

“Customized?” asked Louis.

“Maryland,” said Simeon. “Had it dehorned.” He drew the gun smoothly and rapidly and held it so that they could see where the sharp edges had been removed from the front and rear sights, the magazine release, the trigger guard extension, and the hammer. The display functioned both as a surprising act of vanity on Simeon’s part that Angel would not have associated with a man like him, and also as a warning: they had arrived unscheduled, and at a late hour. Simeon was wary of them.

He put the gun back in its holster and wanded them almost casually, then showed them once again into the room overlooking the pool. This time, the pattern created by the ripples on the wall was distorted and irregular, and Angel could hear the sound of someone swimming. He wandered over to the glass and watched Hoyle performing butterfly strokes through the water.

“He swim a lot?” he asked Simeon.

“Morning and evening,” said Simeon.

“He ever let anyone else use that pool?”

“No.”

“I guess he’s not the sharing kind.”

“He shares information,” said Simeon. “He’s sharing it with you.”

“Yeah, he’s a regular fountain of knowledge.”

Angel turned away and joined Louis at the same table at which they had sat with Hoyle earlier in the week. Simeon stood nearby, allowing them to see him, and him to see them.

“How come you work for this guy?” asked Louis at last. The sounds of swimming had ceased.

“Can’t be too much call for your talents, stuck all the way up here with someone who don’t get out much.”

“He pays well.”

“That all?”

“You serve?”

“No.”

“Then you wouldn’t know. Paying well covers a lot of sins.”

“He got a lot of sins to cover?”

“Maybe. It comes to that, we’re all sinners.”

“Guess so. Still, those Marine skills of yours, they’ll get rusty, sins or no sins.”

“I practice.”

“Not the same.”

Angel saw Simeon twitch slightly.

“You implying that I might need to use them soon?”

“No. Just saying that it’s easy to take these things for granted. You don’t stay sharp and they may not be there for you when you need them.”

“We won’t know until that day comes.”

“No, we won’t.”

Angel closed his eyes and sighed. There was enough testosterone in the room to make a wig bald. They were one step away from arm wrestling. At that moment, Hoyle entered. He was wearing a white robe and slippers, and was drying his hair with a towel, although he did so while wearing the ubiquitous white gloves.

“I’m glad that you came back,” he said. “I just wish it could have been under better circumstances. How is your—” He searched for the right word to describe Gabriel, then fixed on

“‘friend’?”

“Shot,” said Louis simply.

“So I gathered,” said Hoyle. “I appreciate the confirmation, though.”

He took a seat across from them and handed the damp towel to Simeon, who did his best not to bristle at being reduced to the status of pool boy in front of Louis. “I presume that the attack on Gabriel is the reason you’ve returned. Leehagen is taunting you, as well as attempting to punish another of those whom he blames for his son’s death.”

“You seem sure that it was Leehagen who targeted him,” said Louis.

“Who else could it be? No one else would be foolish enough to attack a man of Gabriel’s standing. I’m aware of his connections. To move against him would be unwise, unless one had nothing to lose by doing so.”

Louis was forced to agree. In the circles in which Gabriel moved, there was a tacit understanding that the provider of the manpower was not responsible for what occurred once that manpower was put to use. Louis was reminded of Gabriel’s description of Leehagen: a dying man, desperate for revenge before the life left him entirely.

“So,” said Hoyle. “Let us be clear. Perhaps you’re wondering if this apartment is wired, or if anything that you say here might find its way to some branch of the law enforcement community. I can assure you that the apartment is clean, and that I have no interest in involving the law in this matter. I want you to kill Arthur Leehagen. I will provide you with whatever information I can to facilitate his demise, and I will pay you handsomely for the job.”

Hoyle nodded to Simeon. A file was produced from a drawer and passed to Hoyle. He placed it on the table before them.

“This is everything that I have on Leehagen,” said Hoyle, “or everything that I believe might prove useful to you.”

Louis opened the file. As he flipped through its contents, he saw that some of the material replicated what he had uncovered himself, but much was new. There were sheafs of closely typed pages detailing the Leehagen family history, business interests, and other enterprises, some of them, judging by photocopies of police reports and letters from the attorney general’s office, criminal in nature. They were followed by photographs of an impressive house, satellite images of forests and roads, local maps, and, last of all, a picture of a balding, corpulent man with a series of flabby chins folding into a barrel chest. He was wearing a black suit and a collarless shirt. What was left of his hair was long and unkempt. Dark pig eyes were lost in the flesh of his face.

“That’s Leehagen,” said Hoyle. “The photograph was taken five years ago. I understand that his cancer has taken its toll upon him since then.”

Hoyle reached for one of the satellite images, and pointed to a white block at its center. “This is the main house. Leehagen lives there with his son. He has a nurse who lives in her own small apartment adjoining it. About a quarter of a mile to the west, perhaps a little farther”—he grabbed another photograph, and placed it beside the first—“are cattle pens. Leehagen used to keep a herd of Ayrshire cattle.”

“That’s not cattle land,” said Louis.

“It didn’t matter to Leehagen. He liked them. Fancied himself as a breeder. He felled forest so they could graze, and utilized areas that had been cleared by storm damage. I think they made him feel like a gentleman farmer.”

“What happened to them?” asked Angel.

“He sent them for slaughter a month ago. They were his cattle. They weren’t going to outlive him.”

“What’s this?” asked Louis. He pointed to a series of photographs of a small industrial structure with what appeared to be a town nearby. A thin straight line ran along the bottom of a number of the photographs: a railway line.

“That’s Winslow,” said Hoyle. He placed two standard maps side by side in front of Louis and Angel. “Look at them. See any difference between them?”

Angel looked. In one, the town of Winslow was clearly marked. In another, there was no sign of the town at all.

“The first map is from the 1970s. The second is only a year or two old. Winslow doesn’t exist anymore. Nobody lives there. There used to be a talc mine near the town—that’s what you can see to the east in some of the pictures—owned by the Leehagen family, but it gave out in the 1980s. People started to leave, and Leehagen began buying up the vacant properties. Those who didn’t want to go were forced out. Oh, he paid them, so it was all aboveboard, but it was made clear what would happen if they didn’t leave. It’s all private land now, lying to the northeast of Leehagen’s house. You know anything about talc mining, sir?”