Salvation Row (32 page)

The man pushed down so that Babineaux’s shoulders were in the trunk and then shoved his legs in after him.

“Keep quiet. If you start making noise, I’ll put a rag in your mouth.”

The lid of the trunk slammed shut, and Babineaux was plunged into darkness again.

Outside, he heard muffled voices.

The first man, “Did you call him?”

The second man, “It’s done.”

“All set?”

“Yes. You and Bachman.”

A door slammed, the engine started, and Joel Babineaux was jostled and bumped as the car moved away.

CLAUDE BOON was there first. It was a cheap neighbourhood bar, plenty of wear and tear, the kind of place working men came at the end of the day to drink away their troubles. It was early evening and there were already eight other drinkers in the bar. The pace was slow, and Boon leaned back on the bentwood stool and observed. His eyes flicked up to the old TV above the bar. He listened as the waitress chatted with the other drinkers. But, most of the time, he eyed the door and waited for Milton.

He had been contacted by Peacock this morning. The principal, this guy Babineaux, had been abducted from his home some time in the night. It was pretty audacious. The place was wired up with the best security that money could buy, some kind of Fort Knox. And yet, from what Peacock was saying, whoever had taken him had walked right in and driven out again in the guy’s own car.

Whoever had taken him? What was he thinking? He knew who it was.

It was Milton.

A male caller had contacted Babineaux’s wife first thing this morning and had explained what had happened. She had spoken with Dubois, Dubois had called Detective Peacock, and Peacock had called him. Boon had driven in from the swamp to a meeting of the three of them, down by the river. Dubois had given Boon another blast of attitude, suggesting that what had happened was because of his tactics, and he had thought about leaving them to get on with things. Cleaning up would be simple enough. Put a bullet in Bartholomew’s head, throw the body to the gators, and get out of town. There was a moment, Dubois giving him attitude, when he had seriously considered it. But then he thought of the money and his promise to Lila. And he thought of Milton, too.

He liked a challenge.

And so he had swallowed the attitude and stuck around. He said he would meet Milton and straighten things out.

And here he was.

He didn’t have long to wait.

Milton came inside on the stroke of six. He saw Boon, walked across, and took the stool next to him.

“Fuck,” Boon said. “John Milton. Look at you. Fuck.”

“Hello, Bachman.”

The use of his old name gave him pause, but he didn’t correct him. “Long time.”

“Years.”

“Iran.”

Boon nodded. “That was a hell of a job. Didn’t think I’d see you again.”

“Me, neither. You do what we do, longevity isn’t something you expect.”

“Suppose we both got lucky. What are you having?”

Milton shook his head. “I don’t drink.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“What is that? A lifestyle choice?”

“Something like that.”

Boon looked at him and saw the eyes of a drunk. “No way. You got a problem with it? You serious?”

Milton paused and didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Boon could see it.

He laughed. “That’s good. How long?”

“Long enough.”

“Why? Drinking to get away from it all? The memories? Nightmares.”

“You’re not my counsellor, Bachman.”

“If it’s any consolation, I felt the same after the first few. I got over it, though.”

“Good for you, Bachman.”

Boon ordered a bottle of beer. The bartender brought it over and he took a sip, assessing Milton as he did. He hadn’t changed much. A little more ragged around the edges, the expensive clothes he had worn before were replaced by cheap department store jeans and an unironed shirt. Grime beneath his nails. Hair that hadn’t been cut professionally for a while. He still radiated the same air of extreme competence that Boon remembered.

“You got out, then?” Boon said.

“Eventually.”

“How’d they take that?”

“About as well as you’d expect.”

“Yeah. I know
that
feeling. I thought about leaving, once or twice, but they would have put a bullet in my head.”

“But you’re still out.”

“Didn’t give them a choice in the end.”

“We heard about that. Big explosion.”

“Wasn’t what it seemed.”

“Clearly. What happened after that?”

“I actually tried to go straight.” He laughed at the thought of it. “Funny, right? I tried to do something else. But I still thought about it. What I did. The men and women I killed.”

“Then stop taking people out.”

He shrugged. “It’s not that, Milton. I’m not complaining. It doesn’t
bother
me. I do what I do best. I take people out. I enjoy the work. And I don’t know how to do anything else.” Milton shifted, a little uncomfortably, and Boon took another sip of his beer. “And this thing we do,” he continued, “the skills we have, they’re not what you’d call transferable. I can’t, you know, take what I’m good at and waltz into another job. Can you imagine working in an office? How’s that gonna play, Milton?”

“It’s not the thing
we
do, Bachman. Speak for yourself. I don’t know anything else, either, but that doesn’t mean I still do it. I’m
out
. I’ve been out for months.”

He chuckled. “So, what are you saying, you want a normal life? A woman, kids, a house? Trips to the beach? Take the kids to ballgames?”

“No. I’m not a fool. We don’t get to have those things.”

“So what is it now, then? You come down to this fucking shit-hole of a town, help out hard-luck cases, build houses for people who are too lazy to pick themselves up? What? You saying you’ve turned into some kind of saint?”

Milton laughed bitterly. “I’m not a saint.”

“What is it, then? Redemption? Atonement?”

“I can’t get redeemed, Bachman. You can’t get redeemed. We can’t make up for the things that we’ve done. But maybe I can start paying back, even if it’s only a little. Maybe I can do that.”

Milton took out a pack of cigarettes, put one in his mouth and lit it.

“Look at the two of us,” Boon said. “Sitting in a bar, shooting the breeze as if we’re best buddies, haven’t seen each other for years, catching up on old times. What a fucking joke, right? What a fucking
joke
.”

Milton pushed the pack across the bar. But Boon rejected it, holding up a hand.

“Look,” he said. “I’m sorry about before. The motel. Nothing personal.”

“Just business?”

“Exactly. Just business.”

Milton had the dead-eyed, ice-blue stare that Boon remembered from before. “People who come to take me out don’t usually have the liberty to sit next to me, have a drink, pretend like it didn’t happen.”

“Why’s that? They’re all dead?”

“Exactly.”

Boon raised his glass in a mock salute. “Same here.”

Milton took a deep drag on the cigarette, the smoke going all the way down into his lungs. He angled his head and blew it out, up to the ceiling. He balanced the half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray.

“Don’t get the wrong idea. We’re not friends. We never were friends, and we never will be. The only reason you’re still breathing the same air as me is because you’ve got Alexander Bartholomew.”

“I know. And the only reason you’re still standing is because you’ve got Babineaux.”

“No,” Milton said. “There’s a difference. You had your shot and you missed. I won’t miss when it’s your turn to go.”

Boon pushed out a grin, bravado, but Milton was as cold as steel. Most people would’ve shown some nerves, just a little, but Milton was sitting there with his hands folded on the bar as if they were shooting the breeze about the Saints’ chances at the weekend. “Let’s not get into a dick-waving contest,” he said. “You’re tough, I know that. I know your reputation. I know the way you look at people like that, your eyes all cold. I know how that makes people feel. But I’m not just somebody, Milton.”

“I know.”

“And we both have something the other wants. What do you say we swap them? I’ll give you the junkie, you give me Babineaux.”

“And then what?”

“We find another way to fix it. This situation with the houses you’re helping them build, I’m told that they’re in the way of a development. Maybe, you and me, maybe we can help get that squared away.”

“So we’re mediators now? Maybe it can’t get sorted. What then? You take another shot at me?”

“Wouldn’t necessarily be you next time.”

It was an obvious threat, and Boon could see that it registered. Milton unfolded his arms and, with slow deliberation, laid his right hand on the bar. “Listen to me, Avi. If anything happens to her or to her family, all bets are off. I’ll kill you, then I’ll kill Dubois, then I’ll kill Babineaux. You know that’s not a bluff.”

Boon eyed him. “Isadora Bartholomew will be crushed in the end. We both know it. It might take a few months and a few million dollars, but doesn’t it make more sense for that money to go straight to her rather than making rich lawyers even richer?”

Milton nodded. “Maybe we can agree on that.”

“They’ll negotiate?”

Milton spoke calmly. “How’s this,
I’ll
talk to Babineaux and make him realise that it’s going to take a lot more money than he’s offering. If he agrees, I’ll talk to the charity. If I can get them to agree, we can move on to what comes next. You give me the kid, I give you him.”

“And I’ll speak to my side. Make them see sense. That might work.”

Milton stood. “We good?”

Boon reached out and took Milton’s wrist, anchoring it. “Hold on. We do what we gotta do, right? I’ve been retained by Babineaux. I only get work if people know I can do what I tell them I can do. Maybe this time, the problem gets solved another way, no need to spill blood over it. But, let me tell you something, Milton, and this is no word of a lie. If we can’t get this sorted, if we can’t get them to agree on a price, then, odds are, we go back to where we were before. Now that we’ve had this nice chat, this chance to reminisce, I can’t say that I’m gonna get any pleasure from taking you out. But, Milton, don’t mistake me, if it’s between you and my reputation, I’m taking you out.”

Milton nodded his understanding. “That cuts both ways. Like I said, you only get one shot at me. The way I see it now, you are
owed
. If this isn’t settled, and I have to come after you—you, Babineaux, and anyone else who gets in my way—you are done for. I don’t want any more blood on my conscience, but you need to know that I’ve killed since I left the service. And I’ll kill again if you make me. Between you and me, Bachman, I’ve tried to bury the monster so deep that I could never find it again. But I can’t. It’s there, right beneath the surface. Ready.” He held his eye and clicked his fingers. “That’s all it takes to switch all that back on again. Now—take your hand off my arm before I break your wrist.”

Boon left it there for a moment and then lifted it clear.

“We both understand each other, then.”

“We do.”

“Maybe it comes to that, maybe it doesn’t.”

“Or maybe we’ll never see each other again.”

They held each other’s gaze for a long moment, neither of them prepared to blink first. Then Boon took out his wallet and left a ten on the bar, standing his empty bottle over one corner of the note. He stood, gave Milton a nod of his head, and left the bar.

THE MAN who Milton had identified as Avi Bachman was driving a scruffy Ford, dust slathered around the wheel arches. Ziggy watched him from his own car parked a hundred yards away on the opposite side of the road. Bachman paused for five minutes, long enough for Milton to come out of the bar and get into his Corolla and drive away. Bachman stepped outside then, with a small handheld device in his hand. Ziggy recognised it. He was checking for the traces of a signal that would give away the presence of a tracker. When he was satisfied that the car was clean, he went back inside and pulled away.

Ziggy waited for thirty seconds and then followed.

The road was quiet and Ziggy drove a little closer to Bachman’s car. He was driving slowly and carefully.

Ziggy had been busy. Milton had taken a laptop from Babineaux’s house. It had reasonably robust encryption, but that didn’t delay him for very long. Once he was past the protection, he had extracted all of the data and then analysed it. Babineaux was no fool. There were no smoking guns to be found, but there were plenty of clues to follow to secondary sources of information. His lawyer. His accountant. Neither with particularly secure servers. Once he was done, he could demonstrate clear links between Babineaux Properties and the mayor’s office, including instructions to a bank in the Caymans to transfer a series of large payments to an account that he was confident he would be able to link to the mayor’s wife. That evidence had been collected in just a few hours. There were over ninety gigabytes of emails and other data for him to investigate. He was sure that, with a little extra time, he would be able to tie Babineaux up in a bow and deliver him to Izzy.

His phone vibrated. He took the call on the speaker.

“You got him?” Milton asked.

“I got him.”

“Stay back. He’s very careful.”

“Don’t worry, Milton.”

“And dangerous.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“Stay on the line.”

He reached down and powered up the StingRay. It was a rectangular box, twenty inches wide, six inches high and six inches deep. The fascia was furnished with a power switch, DC input and a number of jacks for TX, RX, DF, and GPS antennas. The box was an IMSI catcher. Every device that communicated with a cell tower—mobile phone, smartphone or tablet—had an IMSI chip. The StingRay broadcasted a pilot signal that was stronger than the signals from legitimate cell sites operating in the vicinity. It drew the unique IMSI signals into its grasp and, when it had achieved that, once it was locked onto the signal, then the magic started. The box could siphon data from the phone, block it from working, or, best of all, it could track it.