The Reapers: A Thriller-CP-7 (42 page)

She raised it and fired.

It was Willie Brew who registered the movement, and Willie Brew who responded. There was nothing dramatic about what he did in response, nothing fast or spectacular. He simply stepped in front of Louis, as though he were nudging into line before him, and took the bullet. It hit him just below the hollow of his neck. He bucked at the impact, then backed into Louis, who reached instinctively beneath Willie’s arms to break his fall. There were two more shots, but they came from Angel as Loretta Hoyle died.

Louis laid Willie on the carpet. He tried to loosen the shirt to get at the wound, but Willie pushed his hands away, shaking his head. There was too much blood. It gushed from the wound, drowning Willie in its tide. It bubbled from his mouth as his back arched, Angel and the Detective now beside him. Knowing he was dying, they took his hands, Angel the right and the Detective the left. Willie Brew’s grip tightened. He looked at them and tried to speak. The Detective leaned down, his ear so close to Willie’s lips that blood sprayed upon his face as the mechanic tried to say his final words.

“It’s okay, Willie,” he said. “It’s okay.”

Willie struggled to draw breath, but it was denied him. His face darkened with the effort, and his features contorted in his distress.

“Let it come, Willie,” whispered the Detective. “It’s nearly over now.”

Willie’s body slowly grew limp in Louis’s arms, and the life left him at last.
CHAPTER THIRTY

THEY WRAPPED WILLIE BREW’S body in a white sheet and placed it in the bed of a truck that was parked at the back of the house. Angel drove, the Detective beside him, while Louis kept vigil beside Willie. They followed the road to where the Fulcis and Jackie Garner were waiting. They saw the body in the back of the truck, the sheet stained with blood, but they said nothing.

“Nobody came,” said Jackie. “We waited, but nobody came.”

Then vehicles appeared in the distance: three black vans and a pair of black Explorers, approaching fast. The Fulcis grew tense and hefted their guns in anticipation.

“No,” said Louis simply.

The convoy came to a halt a short distance from where they stood. The passenger door of the lead Explorer opened, and a man in a long black overcoat stepped forward, placing a gray homburg hat on his head to protect him from the rain. Louis climbed down from the bed of the truck and walked to meet him.

“Looks like you’ve had quite the morning,” said Milton.

Louis regarded him without expression. The distance between the two men was only a couple of feet, but a chasm yawned there.

“Why are you here?” said Louis.

“There’ll be questions asked. You don’t just declare war on someone like Arthur Leehagen and expect no one to notice. Is he dead?”

“He’s dead. So is his son, and Nicholas Hoyle’s daughter.”

“I would have expected no less of you,” said Milton.

“Bliss, too.”

Milton blinked once, but said nothing in response.

“You didn’t answer my question,” said Louis. “Why are you here?”

“A guilty conscience, perhaps.”

“You don’t have one.”

Milton inclined his head gently in acknowledgment of the truth of Louis’s statement. “Then call it what you will: professional courtesy, a tying up of loose ends. It doesn’t matter.”

“Did you order the killing of Jon Leehagen?” said Louis.

“Yes.”

“Did Ballantine work for you?”

“On that occasion, yes. He was just one more layer of deniability, a buffer between us and you.”

“Did Gabriel know?”

“I am sure that he suspected, but it wouldn’t have done for him to have asked. It would have been unwise.”

Milton looked over Louis’s shoulder, in the direction of Leehagen’s house, and his eyes were far away for a moment.

“I have bad news for you,” he said. “Gabriel died during the night. I’m sorry.”

The two men stared at each other. Neither broke.

“So, what now?” asked Louis.

“You walk away.”

“What’s the cover story?”

“Gang warfare. Leehagen crossed the wrong people. He was engaged in illegal activity: drugs, people trafficking. We can say the Russians did it. We hear you know all about them. I’m sure that you’ll agree it’s entirely plausible.”

“What about the survivors?”

“They’ll keep quiet. We’re good at making people hold their tongues.”

Milton turned and waved to the clean-up teams. Two of the vans headed for Leehagen’s house.

“I have one more question,” said Louis.

“I think I’ve answered enough questions for now. In fact, I’ve answered all of the questions I’m going to answer from you.”

He began to walk back to the Explorer. Louis ignored what Milton had said.

“Did you want Arthur Leehagen dead?” asked Louis.

Milton paused. He was smiling when he looked back.

“If you hadn’t done it, we’d have been forced to take care of him ourselves. People trafficking is a risky business. There are terrorists out there willing to exploit every loophole. The Leehagens weren’t as particular as they should have been about who they dealt with. They made mistakes, and we had to clean up after them. Now we’re going to clean up after you instead. That’s why you’re walking away, you and your friends. It looks like you did one last job for us after all.”

He turned and signaled to the remaining black van. The side doors opened, and two men stepped out: the Harrys.

“The local cops picked them up,” said Milton, “probably on Leehagen’s orders. Best thing that could have happened to them, under the circumstances. Take them home, Louis, the dead and the living. We’re finished here.”

With that, Milton climbed in the Explorer and followed the clean-up crew to the Leehagen house. Louis stood in the pouring rain. He raised his face to the sky and closed his eyes, as though the water could wash him clean of all that he had done.

EPILOGUE

I

Am found.

O let him

Scald me and drown

Me in his world’s wound.

—DYLAN THOMAS (1914–53), “VISION AND PRAYER”

IF NICHOLAS HOYLE WAS concerned for his safety after what had occurred, then he gave no sign of it. His daughter was buried in a cemetery in New Jersey, but Hoyle did not attend the funeral, and neither did any of the men whom Louis and Angel had encountered at Hoyle’s penthouse, the enigmatic Simeon included. It appeared that Simeon had an apartment of his own somewhere in the Hoyle building, because when he did leave the penthouse he always returned before dark, and he was never alone on his sojourns. None of this concerned Angel and Louis, who were content merely to watch and wait. Over the course of six weeks they, and others, kept vigil from a rented apartment overlooking Hoyle’s building, noting all that went on, keeping track of delivery companies, office cleaners, and the other outside services that kept the building running. In all that time, they saw no sign of Hoyle himself beyond the doors of his apartment. He was sequestered in his fortress, unassailable.

On the day after Loretta Hoyle was buried in New Jersey, Willie Brew was laid to rest in Queens. The Detective, Angel, and Louis were there, as was Willie’s ex-wife and all of his friends. It was a well-attended affair. The mechanic would have been proud. After the funeral, a small group retired to Nate’s to remember Willie. Angel and Louis sat in a corner alone, and nobody bothered them, not until an hour had passed and Arno arrived at Nate’s door. His absence until that point had been noted, but nobody knew where he was or what he was doing. He made his way through the crowd, ignoring outstretched hands, words of condolence, offers of drinks. He paused briefly in front of the Detective and said: “You should have looked out for him.”

The Detective nodded, but said nothing.

Arno moved on to where Angel and Louis were sitting. He reached into the inside pocket of the only suit that he owned and withdrew a white envelope, which he handed to Louis.

“What is it?” said Louis, taking the envelope.

“Open it and see.”

Louis did so. It contained a bank draft.

“It’s for twenty-two thousand three hundred and eighty-five dollars,” said Arno. “It’s all the money that Willie owed you on your loan.”

Louis placed the draft back in the envelope and tried to hand it to Arno. Around them, the bar had gone quiet.

“I don’t want it,” said Louis.

“I don’t care,” said Arno. “You take it. It’s money that was owed to you. Now the debt is paid. We’re all square. I don’t want Willie lying in the ground owing something. He’s done now. We’re done. In return, I’d appreciate it if you’d stay away from our place of business in the future.”

“Our” place of business. Willie’s and his. That was the way it had always been, and that was the way it would stay. Willie’s name would remain above the door, and Arno would continue to service the cars that came his way, overcharging only slightly.

With that, Arno turned his back on them and left the bar. He walked down the street to the auto shop and entered through the side door. He hit the lights and breathed in deeply, before walking to the little office and taking the bottle of Maker’s Mark from the filing cabinet. He poured what was left into Willie’s mug, headed out onto the floor, pulled Willie’s favorite stool from a corner, and sat down.

Then Arno, now truly alone, began to weep.

The pool cleaners arrived at the Hoyle building, as always, at 7:00 P.M. after Hoyle had just finished his evening swim. Maintenance checks were always performed in the evening, while Hoyle prepared for dinner, so as not to disturb his routine. The cleaners were met in the outer lobby by Simeon and another guard named Aristede, and there they were wanded and frisked. The two men who arrived on this particular evening were not the usual cleaners. Simeon knew them all by sight and name, but these guys he had never seen before. They were a pair of Asians: Japanese, he thought. He called the owner of the pool company at home and she confirmed that yes, they were her men. Two of the regular cleaners were sick, and the others were tied up with jobs all over the place, but the Japanese guys were good workers, she said. At least, she thought they were Japanese. To be honest, she wasn’t quite certain either. Simeon hung up, gave the cleaners a final pat-down just to be safe, checked their tool kits and chemical containers for weapons, then admitted them to Hoyle’s inner sanctum.

Nicholas Hoyle’s pool was state-of-the-art, the most technically advanced that money could buy. At the touch of a button, a river effect could be created giving the sensation of swimming against the current, variable according to the exercise level required. It had a UV sterilizing system, complete with auto-chlorine dosing to maintain the chlorine levels, an automatic backwash filter, and an automatic pH controller. A Dolphin 3001 pool cleaner took care of routine brushing and vacuuming, and the entire system was overseen by a control panel enclosed in a small ventilated cabin next to Hoyle’s private sauna. Although it was all environmentally costly, Hoyle had made some provisions for power saving and privacy. The lights came on upon entry and turned themselves off when Hoyle exited. Once he was inside the pool area, an internal palm-printactivated lock made it virtually impregnable. But, as with all such advanced systems, routine maintenance was essential. The pH electrodes needed to be cleaned and calibrated, and the chlorine and pH adjusting solutions replenished, so the two Asians had brought all the necessary fluids and test equipment with them. Simeon watched as the cleaners performed the usual routines, chatting animatedly as they did so. When they were done, he signed off on their work and they departed, bowing slightly to him as they entered the elevator and thanked him.

“Polite little fellas, ain’t they?” said Aristede, who had worked for Hoyle for almost as long as Simeon.

“I guess,” said Simeon.

“My old man never trusted them, not after Pearl Harbor. I liked those ones, though. He’d probably have liked them, too.”

Simeon didn’t comment. Regardless of race or creed, he tended to keep his feelings about others to himself.

The woman who owned the pool company was named Eve Fielder. She had taken over the running of it after her father died and had built it into a well-regarded concern catering to upscale clients and private health clubs. Right now, she was staring at the receiver that she had just replaced in its cradle and wondering for just how much longer her company would be of any concern at all.

“Happy?” she asked the man seated across from her.

The man wore a ski mask. He was short, and she was sure that he was white. His colleague, who was tall and, judging by the flashes of skin that she could see beneath the mask, black, was sitting quietly at the kitchen table. He had tuned her satellite radio to some godawful countryand-western station, which suggested a degree of sadism in those who were currently holding her hostage. Alone. For the first time in years, she wished that she was not divorced.

“Contented,” said the small man. “It’s the best we can hope for in life.”

“So what do we do now?”

He checked his watch.

“We wait.”

“For how long?”

“Until the morning. Then we’ll be on our way.”

“And Mr. Hoyle?”

“He’ll have a very clean pool.”

Fielder sighed.

“I get the feeling this is going to be bad for my business.”

“Probably.”

She sighed again.

“Any chance we could turn off that hick music?” she asked.

“I don’t think so, but he’ll be gone soon.”

“It really sucks.”

“I know,” he said. He sounded sincere. “If it’s any consolation, you’re only going to have to listen to it for an hour. Me, I got a life sentence with that as the sound track.”

Hoyle worked in his private office until shortly after 9:00 A.M. He was an early riser, but he liked to break up his morning with exercise. He spent an hour on the stairmaster in his personal gym before stripping down to his trunks and entering the pool area. He stood at the side of the pool, his toes hanging over the edge. He put on his goggles, took a deep breath, then dived into the deep end, his body barely making a splash as it broke the water, his arms outstretched, bubbles of water emerging from his nostrils and floating upward. He stayed under the water for half the length of the pool, then kicked for the surface.