For Nothing (35 page)

The cabin was one big, open space other than two doorways that led into other rooms. A couch and a couple of chairs covered with plastic decorated the room. The place didn’t appear to be used much or often. To the right of the assassin were two hooks. A black fedora hung from one, while the other one supported a double holster made of leather. Two pistols with silencers attached to them hung there.

“It’s him!” Alex said.

Renaud walked further into the room. His voice seemed to boom as he addressed Rafael Rontego.

“Mister Rontego, I am Corporal Renaud of the Toronto Emergency Task Force. We are to take you into custody as an unwelcomed visitor across our borders.”

Alex noticed that the assassin’s head dropped a bit lower, but otherwise he didn’t move.

Vaughn moved further to the right, positioning himself in the path of the kil er and his weapons.

Renaud continued, “Mister Rontego, do you understand me? Mister Rontego, show me your hands.”

Stil , the assassin barely moved. His shoulders moved up and down with his breathing and Alex was pretty sure the man was trying to figure out his next move.

Vaughn jumped in, “There is nowhere to go; the building is surrounded.”

The Corporal nodded his approval as he moved to the left, putting more distance between himself and Alex. “Come now, let us end this peaceful y.”

Vaughn was now almost directly to the side of the hit man and could see the side of his face. He noticed the man’s eyes were closed and his breathing was erratic, his breath was coming in short bursts as if he were preparing himself for something.

bursts as if he were preparing himself for something.

His lips moved as if he were speaking to himself.

That was when Alex noticed it.

The man was clutching a smal gun in his left hand pressed against the counter. At that moment, everything happened at once. The kil er spun around and his hand stretched out towards Renaud.

Alex screamed, “Gun!” and dropped into a crouch.

He swung his hand upward and fired off a shot. Renaud crouched down and attempted to squeeze off a round when a single bul et exploded through the window, shattering tiny reflective pieces of glass into the room along with bits of ice and snow. Pieces of glass whipped across the Corporal’s face and his shot went wide of the assassin, striking the wal behind him.

But both the sniper’s bul et and Vaughn’s found their mark. Vaughn’s struck him in the gut and the sniper’s hit him in the center of the chest. He fel backward against the counter with a thud. A splash of blood sprinkled the window behind him and a streak of it fol owed the murderer’s body as he slid down until he was sitting on the floor. The sniper’s bul et left a burning hole in the assassin’s jacket and smoke trailed upward out of it. Vaughn’s bul et tore into the bel y and blood oozed through the fabric of his shirt, so dark that it almost looked black where it poured out the most. The gun fel from the man’s grasp as he sat against the counter and fel to the floor at his side.

Renaud spoke into the radio on his shoulder,

“We need medical help in here. We have a man down.”

Vaughn paused for a moment as he struggled to interpret the scene. Alex noticed the man staring past the room and his left foot kicked from side to side as if he were trying to walk.

This is all wrong.

He ran forward towards the assassin and slid on his knees along the wooden floor. He pul ed the man onto his back and pressed his hand against the wound in his stomach, where the blood seemed to be seeping out the worst.

“Don’t you die you son of a bitch. You have to answer for what you did to my friend!” The assassin lay on his back and blood trickled out of his mouth. He stared up at the ceiling and Vaughn could see his eyes rol as he struggled to bring them into focus.

“Who’s your friend?”

“Jack Benton!”

The kil er coughed and a smile made more of blood than of teeth flashed at the detective. “Never heard of him.”

“You fucking prick! Don’t you lie to me! Don’t you lie to me!”

Alex felt a rage in his soul that traveled to his very fingertips and he wanted the assassin to feel it too. He pressed his fingers into the wound in the man’s stomach and the kil er thrashed as the pain registered across his brain.

“Say it! Say it!”

The assassin turned his head and coughed, his blood pouring out of his mouth as his lungs fil ed with blood. He started laughing, as if it was al one big joke.

“Say what?”

“Say you knew Jack Benton!” Alex pressed his fingers into the wound even harder and again the assassin kicked out from the sheer agony.

Renaud spoke from behind him. “That’s enough Detective.”

Stil Vaughn dug his fingers into the man’s stomach.

“I knew him! I knew Jack Benton!” He screamed out the words as his body convulsed and Alex couldn’t tel anymore if it was from pain or from death throes.

He looked back over his shoulder as the Corporal stared in shock back at Alex. Several men started to flood into the room, fol owed by the Marshal and Vaughn felt the blood rush out of his face as his own actions came into focus.

He rol ed over next to the assassin, and looked down at his hands. They were covered in black blood and his shirt was speckled red from drops of spray. He heard a low laugh to his side and looked over at the assassin.

He tried to say a few words, but then he laughed again in a death fil ed delirium. His lips were moving and he was staring at Alex. Vaughn couldn’t make out what he was saying so he lowered his ear next to the assassin. Stil he couldn’t decipher the sounds coming from the man. When his ear was almost to the man’s blood covered lips he heard almost to the man’s blood covered lips he heard him.

“This, al of this, is per niente.”

“What?”

“Per niente. For nothing.”

Then he started laughing again and Alex could see the man’s fingers twitching against the wooden floor. Blood was al along his arm and Alex wondered whether or not any part of the world was free of the red liquid. As he sat there watching the assassin struggle for life, he wished that it could be so. He wished that some piece of the world was free of the stain.

The assassin gave one last gasp that heaved more blood than air into his lungs and his body gave one last kick and then was stil .

Renaud walked over to the detective who sat there staring into the vacant eyes of the kil er. “What did he say?”

“He said this is al for nothing. I don’t get what he means.”

“Perhaps this is why.” Renaud crouched down and showed the pistol to Vaughn. He pul ed the trigger and a smal flame leaped from the barrel of the gun, and stayed there.

“A lighter?”

“Oui.”

Alex’s dehydrated lips pul ed on one another and his mouth fel open.

“You couldn’t have known.”

*

Alex Vaughn rubbed his eyes as he tried to focus on the snow streaked pavement flashing under his tires along with the partial y obscured yel ow lines that raced past the wheels. The adrenaline wore off during a marathon session of answering questions and helping the local Mounties fil out their paperwork and the weariness seeped into every cel of his body. From there, it was just going to trickle down.

“As if I didn’t have enough paperwork already,” lamented Marshal Johnson when he viewed the gruesome scene moments after the assassin stopped moving.

Alex tried to stifle a yawn but it escaped between his fingers despite his best efforts. No doubt he was going to have to file a report too, and it was always better to fil it out while things were fresh in the memory. He glanced over at the gun holster with a twin set of pistols lying on the seat next to him.

A black fedora rested on top of them and off to the side and it quivered with the vibrations of the car as if an invisible hand was shaking it back and forth.

“You might need these to put some pieces together. Perhaps for other investigations.” Renaud handed the items to him as he clasped him on the shoulder. “You know, real gun or not, you stil acted to save my life. Thank you for that.”

The man looked him in the eye and held him there for a moment. Nothing else needed to be said, Alex felt that same way when two mobsters sprung him from the clutches of one of his corrupt brethren just several hours earlier.

How do you put a price on tomorrow?

You don’t care how you got it, you’re just happy that you have a tomorrow, today.

Jack once waxed philosophical with Alex, as he often did after a few drinks. The two of them were reclining back on some cheap lawn furniture, smoking cigars, while a woman Jack was dating and Charlotte were inside talking about the pregnancy.

Alex just found out that it was going to be a girl, and Jack brought these cigars that were wrapped with a pink band that proclaimed, “It’s a girl!”

“How do you feel, old pal?” he asked as his eye caught a twinkle with the setting sun. His bushy eyebrows seemed to shade his eye just enough to keep it open and to reflect the light in a way that made Alex think Jack knew something he didn’t. It was often that way with the two of them.

“I feel alright. You know, I thought, for sure I thought, I would feel a bit down if it wasn’t a boy. But I just feel different. Instead of thinking footbal , I’m thinking dances and boyfriends I have to keep away.

Different, but stil real y, real y good.” Alex felt a tranquil smile creep up and meld with the relaxing sun as it began its ritual downward slope. The warmth of it spread across his face and he closed his eyes, feeling the gentle heat.

“Wel , if you have any trouble with the boys, you send them over to Uncle Jack for a talking to.” He put the cigar between his teeth and clasped his hands behind his head, taking a long look at the purple and red streaks sliding out from the center of purple and red streaks sliding out from the center of the orange bal of flame. He puffed on the cigar sending bits of smoke trailing from the corner of his mouth. “Is it a funny thing?”

“Is what a funny thing?” Alex rol ed his head over to better regard his friend.

Jack’s lips curled in a slight smile and he cocked his head to the side, as if he found it amusing that Alex hadn’t caught on yet.

“To realize that you’re living for someone else’s tomorrow rather than your own today?” Vaughn studied his friend. Jack’s eyes were closed now and a half-smile splayed across his face.

He raised a hand to his mouth, catching the cigar between his fingers and bringing it down to his side.

“I don’t know, I guess I hadn’t thought.”

“Wel , you better start, old boy. You better start.”

For the first time, Alex Vaughn was thinking about what that meant. He looked at the road, his eyes alert now. The paperwork would have to wait.

Home beckoned.

He put the Crown Victoria in park and grabbed the holster and fedora and trudged up the walkway to Charlotte’s. He thought his heart would be heavier, that there would be more trepidation to confront her. He didn’t feel that sense of anxiety.

Perhaps it was because he knew that al that stood in their way before was him.

A gust of wind almost knocked Alex over and he jogged the final steps to the door. It was after 2

a.m. again, but he didn’t feel bad about coming home this late. Better late than never.

Alex Vaughn pushed in the doorbel and heard the familiar chime behind the door. He pul ed his tattered jacket taut with his free hand, trying to make himself look presentable and he brushed his hair back behind his ears. He noticed his shirt and the dried blood that caked it, and he glanced down wishing he changed it, or stopped off at his apartment first.

Before he could settle himself, she was easing the door open. Her brown hair was pul ed back in a bun and she had on that pink bathrobe again and Alex couldn’t help but smile at the shocked expression that leaped off of her soft features.

“It’s been a long day.”

She continued to look at him, her mouth agape. “Your clothes, your face! My God, what happened to you? Every time I see you there’s less of you!”

Alex couldn’t help it, he tried to hold it back but his lips trembled and he laughed. His eyes began to tear up, he was laughing so hard. Then it wasn’t laughing tears that began to stream down his cheeks.

”Baby, I want to come home.”

She moved across the threshold in that subtle and shifting way that Alex thought so perfect, it appeared mystical. She draped her arms across his shoulders, blood and sweat and tears and al , and she pul ed him close.

“Oh Alex, don’t you know that’s al you ever had to do?”

The tears dropped off his cheeks and landed on the shoulder of her robe, and Alex tried to firm his jaw, but it just trembled al the more.

“What?”

She pul ed him inside and shut the door.

“Al you had to do was come home.”

The next morning Alex woke up just after noon, to a little girl waddling across his bedroom.

She was al of two feet tal and every few feet she stumbled and grabbed a hold of something to keep herself upright, but she made her way over to the bed and put her face right next to Alex.

She looked him right in the eye and he looked at her and said, “Good morning beautiful.” She didn’t say anything back, but Alex felt sure, just by looking into her eyes, that she knew what he was saying, that she knew him. Vaughn picked her up and walked down the stairs, feeling her tiny fingers grab his finger and hold on with a trust he hoped to earn over the years.