Vengeance (21 page)

“What now? You’re going to take me somewhere and put me in that world of hurt you mentioned?” I asked.

Rook looked at me askew before checking traffic and pulling out. After he turned the corner to head toward the avenue, he said, “Wouldn't have gone to the trouble of watching you for days if that’s what I was planning to do.”

Rook hadn’t needed to tell me that. He could have let me squirm for his own amusement. Maybe he wanted me to calm down so I didn’t make a run for it at a stoplight. But I thought he wanted to reassure me that I wasn’t facing an immediate threat.

“Where we headed?” I asked.

“Someone wants to speak to you.”  

Chapter 25

We parked behind a bank of commercial buildings that was too small to be a strip mall. More of a professional complex. Rook kept the engine running as we waited. Not even the radio was on. Just the purr of the heater.

“Why ‘Rook’?” I asked. He sighed and maintained a dead-ahead stare. I didn’t know if he would have preferred to talk about the weather or probably not talk at all. But I was nervous and that’s what came out.

“Your name is your title,” he said. Someone was going to start calling me Knuckles or Bruiser,” he said. “Like the strongmen characters from an old Looney Tunes cartoon.”

“It’s from chess? So why not ‘King’?”

He snorted. “Because I’m not the king. Besides, a black man called King reminds people of the civil rights movement. Then someone starts calling me The Reverend.”

“Bishop?” I supplied. Maybe levity was my way of not contemplating why we were waiting behind those buildings. I caught Rook checking the digital clock above the stereo. He looked out his window.

“You understand chess?” he asked. “It’s the most valuable player, below the king and queen. A long time ago, when I was still new to this life, I saw pawns all around me. I wasn’t going to be one of them.”

As he was finishing that thought, a door opened on the back of the closest building. A figure backlit from the light in the hall and signaled for us to come in. Rook killed the engine and told me to get out. I waited for him to take the lead, but he motioned for me to walk ahead. After all, I remembered, I was the hostage.

“Myself,” Rook continued as we walked, “I am exactly what I set out to be. I spotted the most indispensable niche that I could occupy that fit my skills and aptitude. People don’t ask why I don’t shoot for a promotion. They know exactly how crucial my role is in this business.”

Inside, the man who had opened the door led me down the hall while Rook secured the door. We were in a veterinarian’s office. I could smell the animals, faintly, beneath a layer of sterilizer. And I could hear cages rattling behind the doors as we woke some of the residents. I was surprised we hadn’t set off a cacophony of barking. Rook caught up as we paused outside one of the six closed doors that lined the hall. The man stayed outside while I was ushered into the room ahead of Rook’s mass. It looked similar to a physician’s examination room, with a bank of cabinets and a sink along the left wall, and an exam table to the right of that. A man who looked to be in his sixties was sitting on a high stool next to the table. In the corner over his left shoulder was a man in a wool pea coat standing sentry, one hand up to scratch at his eye and nose, like he had allergies. There was another figure along the wall with the door. Before I turned, he said, “Ethan.”

Casey. Of course.

“Mr. Tanner,” the old man said. “Thank you for joining us. I would apologize for the late hour, but this intervention was precipitated by your actions this evening. Rook tells me you have been conducting an investigation that involves some of our business interests, yes?”

“I’m not investigating your business,” I said. My sharp tone didn’t betray my grasp of the peril I was facing. This guy was obviously someone important, and I had never done well with showing respect to authority figures.

“Of course. I understand the situation with your brother. And I admire what you are doing for his memory. But you are, in fact, bringing this matter of yours to our doorstep. Specifically, I am led to believe that you purchased a gun tonight for the purpose of, what, killing Mr. Sterling?”

They had been following me long enough to know exactly where I was headed and why.

“You understand I can’t let you kill this man,” the old man continued when he saw I wasn’t going to answer. “He’s an important member of our family. Quite a good earner, honestly. Anyway, your actions would bring police and press attention that we go to great expense to avoid.”

“Like how Aiden’s death was treated as an accident. You guys do anything you want then pay off the police or whoever it takes to make the whole thing go away.”

“Ha!” He seemed more amused than insulted. “Think this through. At our core, we’re businessmen. We do what we do to make money. We don’t just go around killing people, especially not our customers.”

“Apparently, Sterling does.”

The old man nodded deeply several times as he started to speak.

“I am embarrassed to admit it, but that is a matter that we were unaware of. And I appreciate your bringing this to our attention. But killing customers doesn’t make any sense. We rely on our customers, after all. I am disturbed by Mr. Sterling’s poor business sense. Still, this cannot compare to how you must feel. Would you believe me if I assured you that Sterling had no authority to have your brother killed, and that if he did have your brother killed, he will be punished for operating above his station?”

The weight he placed on his question told me it was more than rhetorical. “You seem sincere,” I said. “But it’s hard to trust strangers who kidnap you to a vet’s office in the middle of the night.”

He laughed while the rest of us waited. Rook and Casey were so still I almost forgot they were in the room. It was like sitting in on a poker game with four guys who knew each other’s tells. I was the outsider, so I followed their lead. The old man was used to being listened to.

“I like you!” the old man said. “I was afraid you’d be too much like your father. I see traces of him in you, but you’re not the same. Yes, I know your father. I used to know him. Maybe you’ve heard him talk about me. He probably used my old moniker. The Butcher.”

He watched my eyes track upwards to scan memories for what my father had told me about him. The Butcher. He had come to America from somewhere in the Middle East. Turkey, maybe. And he got his name from performing coat-hanger abortions before I was born. Yeah, my dad had mentioned him from time to time. The key impression that overshadowed every detail was that whenever he told a story about the Butcher, he seemed to glow from a pride of just having been in this man’s confidence. It was clear the Butcher had been a major player back then. And it seemed he had risen to the very top of the local crime food chain.

“Yes,” he said, smiling. He certainly had old-school charm, this butcher. “You’ve heard things. Well, good. It’s these stories that precede us and establish expectations in those who finally meet us. You’ve probably heard of the abortions. Such grisly work, in people’s minds. And really not my specialty. I’ve removed countless bullets, stitched up every imaginable gash and cut. Minor work, but I always applied the utmost craftsmanship.” He looked over his shoulder to the man in the corner. “Show him the scar on your neck.”

The pea coat sentry unbuttoned his coat and shirt enough that he could pull his collar down and lift his chin to expose a faint white scar.

“Now that was a nasty cut that many other doctors might have turned into an ugly scar. But I think I worked a fair amount of surgical magic. Still, they took to calling me The Butcher. What an awful commentary on my skills. And not very original. I’ve met someone with the same epitaph in virtually every city I’ve been to.”

The Butcher flicked a finger toward Pea Coat to signal he could button up his scar.

“But the part of my reputation that worried people the most was that I was rumored to have traded in vital organs. Mostly kidneys. So if we had cause to drag you to, let’s say, a veterinarian’s office in the middle of the night, you might have reason to worry we’d inject you with a tranquilizer, and you would wake up in a tub of ice with a note pinned to your chest, or however that urban legend goes.”

He stood and opened the upper cabinets one by one. Nodding and humming in approval at what he saw.

“A scalpel, some stitching, some gauze. It doesn’t take much. Usually, as the rumor goes, I would extract an organ to collect a debt. But I suppose the procedure could be performed in exchange for information. There’s always someone in need of a kidney. I could sell it tonight for twenty thousand, easily.”

“All right,” I said. It didn’t matter if he was making a threat or proposing a transaction. He named a price and I accepted the offer.

“Yes?” He beamed at my reply. “It’s a deal? You trust me to keep my word and give you your answers once the operation is over?”

“I do,” I said.

He slapped the exam table heartily as he sat back on the stool. He spun around in an arc like he was a twelve year-old.

“This!” he said, pointing at me and scanning the faces of everyone in the room. “This is an example of honor. If you had insulted me or treated me like a criminal now, you surely know we could have taken what we wanted from you and given you nothing in return. But you made a deal based on faith! I see that in you. You may speak rudely, but you understand respect.”

I wasn’t sure what came next. Was I supposed to take my shirt off and lie on the table? When the Butcher read my hesitation, he waved and shook his head to dispel the whole notion of surgery.

“There’s no need for any of that,” he said. “We are already in your debt. Tell me, what have you found out?”

I thought I had been steadfast, but once the deal was taken off the table I felt my legs quiver. I could see Casey relax his stance, too, as if he were inhaling for the first time in a minute. The fact that he had become anxious along with me told me how close I had come to going under the knife.

“Sterling is extending credit through his dealers,” I said. “Then he collects interest on the debt. But when someone falls behind on payments, he sends the Brothers to rough them up. He tortured one of his customers and he’s had the Brothers intentionally kill another to collect the life insurance. I’m not sure if there are others, but my brother appears to have been one of his victims, too.”

“The Brothers. I blacklisted those two a while ago. Too unpredictable to use in our organization,” the Butcher said, weighing what I had said. “Do you have proof?”

I recounted what I had heard about Flash and the information Wade and D-Bag had furnished, leaving my sources anonymous, though I suspected Rook, Casey, and the Butcher all knew exactly where I had acquired each piece of information. As I told him the details, I got worked up all over again. He put on a somber expression and motioned for me to settle down.

“I didn’t want to get into this,” I said. “I didn’t want to believe what people said about Aiden’s death. But now I’m so caught up in it I missed my flight home to see it through.”

“This is all weighing on you heavily,” he said. “I understand. And I know you want answers and vengeance. But before we finish our business here, let me tell you a story. A dear friend of mine… his three year-old son was mauled by a neighbor’s dog. It dug under the fence while the toddler was in his sandbox. His mother had run inside to use the bathroom. She was overwrought. Suicidal for some time after. My friend eventually sued his negligent neighbor and won. It was the only recourse the law allowed. But before that lawsuit, when he told me about this situation, when he cried and sobbed in my home and nearly exhausted himself, he told me that if he couldn’t have his son back, he wished he could kill the animal that had taken his little boy away. I asked him if he wanted his neighbor to be killed. I would have done this for my friend, and not with a price attached. I would have arranged an accident, if that were sufficient for him. Or I could have had a sadistic contract hire take this man somewhere remote and torture him for days or weeks. I could have allowed my friend to watch the torture, or even his neighbor’s ultimate end. I could have had this man mauled to death by dogs as poetic justice. I was ready to put into motion any series of events that could help my friend feel that justice had been served.

“He slept on the offer. The next morning he declined. He said his neighbor had not killed his son. A dog had killed his son. And the dog could feel no remorse. So my friend had to grieve not only with the loss of his son and the torment it caused his wife, but with the senselessness of the event. There was no one to blame or punish.

“You must understand that I cannot allow you to kill the man who loosed these two dogs on your brother. But, in your case, these dogs are not senseless. So I am offering you a chance to find out the truth from them. If they were sent to kill your brother, I will apply justice to Mr. Sterling. But if they were overzealous and killed your brother through their well-documented recklessness, you may exact whatever penalty you see fit. Do you understand?”

I understood that I had been given the authority to punish the Brothers any way I saw fit, including death. I nodded.

“I offer this in gratitude for exposing this insubordination in my organization,” he said. Then his tone seamlessly shifted from solemn to threatening. “But that is the full extent of my generosity. Your investigation is over. Agreed?”

Rook hummed a nudge for me to accept the offer.

“Agreed,” I said.

The Butcher smiled and rose. He stepped forward and extended his hand. As we shook, Pea Coat came forward and collected the Butcher’s coat from a hook on the wall.

“Mr. Tanner, it has been a pleasure. Godspeed in your mission,” the Butcher told me as Pea Coat slipped the coat onto his boss. As they left, the Butcher nodded at each of the others in turn. “He is in your charge, Rook. Good evening, Mr. Porter.”

As the door closed behind the Butcher, I turned to face Casey.