A Criminal to Remember (A Monty Haaviko Thriller) (6 page)

I looked around curiously.

The walls were covered in different kinds of wood, erratically sized, linked by irregularly shaped plates of bright brass. There were shelves built into the walls holding what looked to be models of ships and buildings, trains and cars and even a couple of planes and what looked like blimps. Overall the place felt busy; chaotic and energized.

Definitely not a place to rest. It was instead a place of energy, a place to work hard. If there were any extra doors, other than the one I had come in and the one at the top of the spiral stairs, I couldn’t see them.

The man behind the desk stood up and came towards me, smiling and showing every tooth he had. I didn’t trust him at all.

“So, Mr. Haaviko, thank you so much for coming. So nice of you.”

Mr. Devanter was quite impressive. He towered over my six feet by at least six inches and weighed about 300 to my 180. His hair was short, brown with some grey, and his eyes were movie-star blue.

At a guess I put him in his mid-forties. Sometimes a dangerous age for men, when they start to feel the creaks and groans of experience; definitely a time when most men feel powerful. Sometimes an age when a man starts trying new things and trying to make a difference.

His suit was nice, a dark blue pinstripe, quite old-fashioned with a vest and a canary yellow shirt along with a blue tie covered in small designs I couldn’t recognize. His tie clip was interesting, though; silver with the design of what looked like two curved knives crossed.

“Shall we sit down?

“Why not?”

We went to a grouping of three chairs around a glass-topped table and Devanter sat down heavily after undoing his suit jacket. It swung open and I caught a glimpse of black leather under his left arm. Then it was gone and he gestured to Reynolds. “Coffee, please, and the Haaviko file on the desk.” He paused very obviously and went on, “I’m sorry. Your file says you like coffee. Is that correct?”

“Sure.”

Devanter wasn’t terribly sophisticated but I liked his bluntness and attitude. He was direct—at least mentioning the file was a hint that he had special knowledge. The file also showed he planned ahead and thought things through, or that’s what it meant to me. It was kind of a crude way to manipulate me though.

Reynolds brought the coffee in a heavy silver thermos on a silver service along with small bowls of cream and sugar. I let Devanter pour into thick-sided white china cups and then I dosed it with cream and sugar and had a sip.

“Good?”

I just barely inclined my head. “Very.”

“Blue Mountain. From Jamaica.”

“Excellent coffee. Very nice island. Great cup.”

“Glad you like them.”

Reynolds put a manila file into Devanter’s lap and I looked around the room some more and let the silence build. When I had finished my coffee I poured some more from the thermos and checked out the tray, which was old and heavy and looked to be real sterling silver. It made a nice contrast to the thermos itself, which was expensive, modern and Italian. It also worked like a charm.

Finally Devanter cleared his throat. “Don’t you want to know why I’ve brought you here?”

“Not really. I’m sure you’ll tell me. A thousand buys you me listening.”

“I have a file here and you’re in it.”

I put my coffee cup down on the glass table and held out a hand for the file. Devanter hesitated and then shook his head. “I think not.”

“Okay.”

“Aren’t you worried?”

“No. I’m an open book. An empty vessel.”

The silence started to build again. Reynolds took a spot right behind me where he could be menacing but I ignored him and kept my eyes on Devanter. Finally he laughed very hard in a sharp bark. “Mr. Haaviko. I want you to accept that offer made by my good friend Aubrey Goodson. Then I want you to throw the race my way.”

I filed the name of Goodson away; it meant nothing. Maybe he was the one who had sent the pair last night. That seemed reasonable. I asked, “Your way?”

Devanter got up and started to pace. “My way. To my good friend Rumer Illyanovitch. He’s a good man, although I’m sure you wouldn’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“He’s an ex-cop and former soldier and a hell of a believer in law and order.”

He sneered and I turned my head from side to side following his movements. “You want me to betray my employer?”

“Yes.” He stood in front of me and put his hands on his hips. “Although he’s not your employer yet. I want to hire you to betray him before you’re actually hired by him.”

“You want me to throw the race. And you’ll give me lots of money if I do so?”

“Yes.”

I walked to the window and looked down at the centre of the oldest part of the city, old roofs covered in pipes and pigeons. On the streets cars crept along, avoiding movie trailers hosting crews shooting the city doubling for Chicago or Dodge or Kansas City or wherever else anyone could imagine. I raised my eyes and saw a beautiful girl about 200 metres away working at a computer with one hand supporting her black-haired head. She was on the sixth floor of a battered building sitting in the middle of an intersection, and between us was a park that had trees around the edges and was mostly dug up.

I raised the coffee in cheers but she didn’t see me and so the gesture was wasted.

Then I turned back to Devanter. “How much is lots of money?”

“Quite a lot.”

I changed the subject. “Why do you have a gun?”

He looked startled and glanced down at himself. “You can see it?”

“Sure. Fire your tailor. Why do you have a gun?”

His smile was grim and tight. “I have enemies.”

I walked back to the thermos and refilled my cup. Then I went back to the window and leaned against it, looking back into the room. “Am I one?”

“No.”

“Then lose the piece.”

He didn’t argue, just stripped it out from under his arm and put it carefully on his desk before holding his hands out all open. “So, I am unarmed.”

“Completely?”

“Completely. Now, can we do business?”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a quick smile cross Reynolds’s face and then it was gone. He did not reach for his gun, no, not him. Maybe he thought I didn’t know it was there. I wondered if they both thought guns were fashion accessories.

“Of course. What are you offering?”

“Ten thousand dollars to throw the election. Twenty five hundred now, twenty five hundred at the halfway point, five thousand when Rumer is elected. Fair?”

“Not really.” I put the coffee down on the desk beside the gun and, without stopping, walked towards the doorway and in the general direction of out. Reynolds crossed quickly to block me and I turned back to Devanter and said, “First off, even if I throw the election there’s no way I can guarantee your boy will win. So take that right off the table. I’ll think about the rest of your offer though. Can you have Reynolds let me leave? He’s really scaring me.”

I said it mildly.

Devanter’s voice boomed, “If this is your way to raise the price it won’t work.” He was being aggressive and loud and I wondered if he was trying to overwhelm me. “I will drop the condition that Rumer wins though. You dropping out of the race at an inopportune time for Goodson would be sufficient.”

A deal is only a deal if both people agree and agreement cannot be forced. I learned those lessons when I was just a little thug out bruising knees for lunch money.

And if you intend to deal honestly with someone you do not bring artillery. That’s a basic rule of life everyone should understand.

When I was close to Reynolds he reached out with his left hand to put it on my shoulder and stop me.

When his hand touched my shirt it became assault.

And then the shit really hit the fan.

And it felt good.

I
like to fight. I try to argue with that truth every day of my life, but I like to fight. I like to challenge myself. I enjoy how it feels to take a shot and to deliver one. I try to pretend I regret the violence but there’s a certain unholy glee every time.

It’s an awful truth to admit, but I like hurting people. If they deserve it.

These two men resorted to violence too quickly. As though they didn’t really understand what it was and what it was for. Their tactics were probably effective enough against businessmen though.

My open right hand came up as quick as could be and hit Reynolds’s hand off my shoulder and up. His eyes locked on mine as I rocked back on my left foot while his right hand reached under his jacket. I lashed out with the tip of my steel-toed shoe and tagged the outside of his left ankle right through the side of his blood-red oxford.

Behind me I heard something break. A china coffee cup maybe?

I think something shattered in Reynolds’s ankle and suddenly his face went slack and he started to wobble a little. That gave me time to drive my open left hand (slightly cupped) into his ear. That drove a packet of air into his ear and probably blew his eardrum out; if you do it with both hands you can permanently deafen someone. Doing it to one ear only really wrecks someone’s balance. Theoretically you can kill someone by doing it but I’ve never succeeded yet.

The blow made Reynolds scream and propelled him to the floor and, as he went, I reached into his jacket and helped him pull his piece. It was a nice little stainless steel semi-auto that looked and felt like a Walther PP. I thumbed the safety and kicked off Reynolds, tucking into a roll as I went tumbling across the floor.

On the other side of the room Devanter had reached the desk and was raising his pistol, holding it in both hands like they teach you in gun school. He was in the Weaver stance, legs wide and braced. He looked thoroughly competent.

I wasn’t worried. He had one eye closed to squint down the barrel and his tongue was sticking out of the corner of his mouth.

They don’t teach you that in any gun school I’ve ever heard about.

I landed on my left shoulder and kept rolling. Thank God the furniture was scattered far and wide. Else it would have been messy and loud and painful; as it was, it was just loud and painful. Those tiles were hard; give me a carpet any day.

As I rolled I worked the slide on my borrowed gun and a bright shell jumped into the air, which meant that Reynolds had been carrying it cocked and locked.

Interesting; he had been anticipating trouble. Or he was an idiot. Either/or or maybe both.

A second later I hit the wall. A model of a plane smashed to the floor beside me as I aimed down the barrel and centred Devanter’s chest in the three white points that made up the gun site.

Neither of us did anything.

About twelve feet away Reynolds tried to get to his knees and puked something fierce as his weight shifted on his ankle.

“Put …” Devanter’s voice broke and he tried again. “Put the gun down!”

A cop technique. A direct order designed to promote an immediate and instinctive reaction. An absolute demand with no discussion or options offered, refusal was not even an option. Results of failure would be left to the imagination of the threatened.

But Devanter hadn’t had any practice doing it.

“Nice piece.” I looked it over while keeping it pointed. The gun was a Sig-Sauer P230, an expensive small-frame pistol from a German/Swiss combine. On the street I could get five bills for it easy, probably less than I’d get on the legitimate market—thugs and thieves never knew quality.

The gun was a little longer than six inches, five inches high and weighed maybe a pound. From the markings on the side it was chambered in .32, not the biggest calibre in the world but a pretty fast round and good enough to kill someone with.

Devanter’s nostrils were flared and his hands trembled. I marked that away for future use. Maybe he was more used to boardroom violence than this kind. Maybe he didn’t like hurting people. Who knew? Maybe he had never actually had to shoot a real, live, human being before.

I got to my feet by bracing myself against the wall. “Call the cops. Reynolds attacked me, Cornelius. I was trying to leave and he grabbed me and pulled a gun on me.”

“What?” It was not what Devanter expected. Reynolds must have heard it because he muttered something with a question mark and then puked some more as his eyes rolled up into his head.

“Call the cops.”

Devanter remembered his training and barked out, “Put the gun down. Now!”

Nice technique, still very familiar. Order and imperative. But the bad guy response is ingrained in me, and that’s to escalate, so I switched targets and centred the white dots on Devanter’s crotch. I tried to imagine what a nice little .32 would do at this range as it dumped maybe 110 pounds of energy over a third of an inch into his family jewels.

I imagined it wouldn’t be pretty.

He flinched when his eyes followed the trajectory.

“Cornelius …” I used his name to personalize the experience. “Cornelius. Call the cops or I will shoot you in the penis. It won’t kill you. Then I’ll call the cops.”

He flinched again and then got bold. “You don’t want the cops. You’ll be arrested.”

That amused the shit out of me. “Been arrested before.”

He absorbed that and went on, “It’ll be my word—our word—against yours. Who will they believe?”

He was getting confident and he squared his stance, although he turned a little to try to take his penis out of the line of fire.

“You. They’ll believe you. Then they’ll find the holster on Reynolds and probably his fingerprints on the magazine and on the bullets. And then they’ll find the piece on you. Then they’ll find the nine $100 bills on me and the $100 bill on my neighbour. And then they’ll check the parking records and find when the Lexus was parked. And then they’ll canvas the neighbourhood and find someone who saw Reynolds park the car. Then they’ll check your security tapes and find me coming in. Then they’ll check the O’Connell in the hallway and find my fingerprints there. Then they’ll find my fingerprints on the coffee cup.”

Devanter’s face went slack and I went on, “Then who knows what they’ll believe. They’ll come up with something that makes them happy. They always do and they’ll polish the shit out of their idea until it shines. Sometimes, just sometimes, cops decide to not like rich people. Just saying. Sometimes rich people just piss them off. It’s a class thing, poor vs. wealthy.”