Silencer (7 page)

All right, so Jonah didn't have the slick-cool thing going on like Moses, and dammit, he didn't have the gaunt, weathered tough-guy face he truly, deep down craved. Newman, McQueen, Eastwood, one of those. What he had was his dead mother's bone structure, way too delicate. Narrow face. Lips puffy and red. So puffy, he'd once investigated lip-reduction surgery to bring his mouth in line with his straight nose, sharp cheekbones, the Aryan ideal. But after he saw the medical brochure, he dropped it. Jonah Faust was not into pain.

Not like Moses. Hell, you could drive nails into his brother's fingers and the guy wouldn't flinch. Hang him on a cross, go ahead, crucify his ass, he'd just look at you with those quiet blue eyes and be like, “What's the big deal? How's this make you a god, hanging on a cross?”

Absorbing punishment was a skill Moses acquired as a kid from standing up to their old man. Putting his body out there to protect Jonah from the drunken abusive prick. Moses, the shield, getting thumped and bloodied so Jonah didn't have to.

Moses, Moses, Moses. Total opposite of Jonah. The guy was deep down tranquil and unruffled as a stoner on a bong full of hash. He never sweated or fretted, just breezed along with a free-flowing, untroubled cool. Today on their mission of homicide, Moses had on a blue button-down no-iron shirt, creased khakis, woven leather belt, and shiny loafers like here he was, some stockbroker driving to a bed-and-breakfast in Vermont for the long weekend.

Moses Faust was the dapper ying to Jonah's rat-fuck yang.

Jonah dressed like a scumbag. Wore the same black jeans day in, day out, till they got crusty and impossible. Same gray sweatshirt with
the arms hacked off. Bought a fresh one when the armpits went rank. White high-tops, no socks, a long green bungee cord for a belt. His fashion statement to the world: Fuck if I care.

As the car zipped south into the Keys, Jonah drew the Glock inside, reloaded from the ammo box between his legs. Barely got it out in time to blast at a couple of speed signs. Missed the first, clipped the second.

“I didn't tell you,” Moses said. “We can't just drill these two and walk off. Thorn and the lady, they've got to evaporate. Can't have a crime scene, a big investigation. Keep this one below the radar.”

“Thorn and Rusty—just saying their names makes my stomach go nasty.”

Moses looked his way, eyes calm, staying in the zone.

Jonah said, “Please tell me this doesn't involves digging graves, 'cause I hate to break it to you, dude, you can't bury bodies in the Keys. The ground, it's coral rock. There's no fucking dirt.”

“Yeah, but there's boats,” Moses said. “Lots of deep water.”

Jonah leaned forward to see if Moses was yanking his leash, but no, he was serious.

“Get real, Mo. I'm not taking any boat ride. That's the end of that story.”

Jonah was cursed by his name, its Biblical aspects. Since he was five and first discovered he was named for a guy famous for being trapped inside a stink-ass whale, Jonah'd been having nightmares, waking up gasping, clawing at the air.

A name could fuck you up. It was predestination. Nothing you did to deserve it. You just got up one morning when you were an innocent kid, and you discovered this weird-ass name stuck to you forever. Shaping your fate.

That name was why he stayed away from the ocean, boats, all that nautical bullshit. If you didn't go near the water, you stayed out of the whale.

Moses scribbled down the bid he'd taken on the blue phone, and dropped that one in the ashtray.

The red phone warbled. The badass phone, a text message coming in. The guy loved texting.

Jonah picked it up.

“Let me guess,” Moses said, “ ‘WTFUB'?”

“Yeah,” Jonah said. “You want me to hit him back?”

Moses nodded, and Jonah shot him a “Jstaboutthr.”

The phone trilled and another message sprang up.

“What now?”

Jonah had to squint in the bad light. “Says skip the woman, just do the guy. Thorn only.”

Jonah thumbed him back: “Ys dat?”

Waited for a minute, then the phone warbled.

“What'd he say?”

“ ‘FAF.' That's a new one. You know it?”

“Fire and forget,” Moses said. “It's military. Refers to one of the new missiles. Damn thing's so accurate you press the button, send it on its way, get back to your bowl of cereal. He's telling us to do the job, stay out of his business.”

“I like that. FAF.”

The phone trilled again.

“ ‘MOS,' ” Jonah said. “Mom over shoulder. He's got to go.”

“Now he's fucking with you. He's not going to tell you anything.”

Another warble and he signed off with his usual: “BEG.”

“We work for one pissed-off primate,” Jonah said. “Fucker has blood-pressure issues, needs some good Navajo flute music to calm his ass down.”

“It's his deal, Jonah. We're just his crew. That's how he works.”

“It's bullshit. Treating us like punks. We need to tell the asshole we want to see the big picture or no job.”

“Oh, yeah? You want to negotiate? Go in the man's house, have a face-off? That man's tough enough to wear pink.”

Jonah thought about that. Picturing a showdown, Jonah muscling up close, getting into the guy's breath. But he had to close his eyes
and shake off the image because the man's giant hands were reaching out to wrap around Jonah's throat, lifting him off the floor.

To clear his mind, Jonah aimed out the window, fired twice into the darkness. That fucking goliath was cold and cruel. A big evil fuck with the morals of a zombie.

The silver phone rang again and Moses nabbed it, flipped it open, got the bid down on the pad, and snapped it shut.

“Offered six-fifty for the Manson drawing,” he said. “Wants the prison envelope, too.”

“What do we have in it?”

“Paid a hundred.” Moses shook his head. “These people continually amaze me. Charlie Manson, that soda's lost its fizz. Hippies, dopers, bunch of Hollywood bimbos. Cobwebs all over that shit.”

“No, man, you're missing the point here. Manson is fucking Elvis. Guy never goes out of style. Those eyes, hell, nobody has eyes like that anymore. Not Dahmer, Bundy, Speck, Berkowitz, Hannibal Lechter. They're all putzes. One look at their gummy eyes, Jesus, they're not in Manson's league.”

Moses glanced over at him.

“Hannibal Lechter is fiction,” he said. “You know that, right? You know the difference between real people and people in movies?”

“I was talking about their eyes, man. Their freaking eyes.”

“You're still wired, aren't you?”

“Maybe a little, sure. Whacking cops, that cranks me up. Cops, all big and tough. I didn't like that guy's name either. Saperstein.”

“You didn't need to empty the clip. That was excessive.”

“I was making sure. Little gun like that, big FDLE man, coming on so bad.”

“I worry about you, Jonah. The way you are after. Like you dig it. It lights you up.”

“No worries, man. It's work, that's all. I take pride in it.” Jonah looked out his window for a few seconds, then turned to his brother.
“Okay, maybe there's some afterglow. But it's like Shaq post-game. He takes a while to come back to Earth. Hits the bars, chills with his boys, has some pussy. I'm like the Shaq of whack.”

“Don't start enjoying it. That's all I'm saying.”

Then Moses went silent. That's what he did sometimes. It used to drive Jonah nuts, the way he'd pull the plug and go quiet. Now when he did it, Jonah pretended to zone out, too, like he was doing the same thing, going off into a cloud of nothingness. Except he wasn't. It was fake. Jonah didn't have an off button. He couldn't do the calm thing. Hell, he could barely do the sleep thing. He was wired funny. It was next to impossible to shut down the turbine inside him.

A couple of miles blew past, with the GPS speaking in a woman's voice, guiding them through the darkness. Jonah did banks and dives with his Glock, getting off a few fruitless shots. Blowing the bark off some mangrove bushes out in the dark.

“How much we getting for this?”

“Two thousand.”

“You're kidding me,” Jonah said. “The FDLE guy, too?”

“Two thousand for the whole thing.”

“That's piss poor.”

“People do worse shit for free every day of the week.”

“Yeah, but Moses, we need to get our asses into the entrepreneurial mind-set. Been like five years the man's stringing us along. We do his heavy lifting, take the risks, and we're still a couple of dumbass wage slaves. Guy's taking advantage. Team MoJo deserves better.”

“That two thousand will buy some groceries.”

Jonah curved the wing of his hand so it came skidding back into the car. He upped the window.

Beside him, Moses braked hard and cut the wheel. Ahead, springing up in the halogen glow, were all the tacky dive shops of Key Largo—the gas stations, seashell stores, sub shops, everything closed up, the highway empty—then Moses swung left, making a U-turn onto
another road, this one darker and surrounded by woods on either side. Snake country. Crazy-ass armadillos, frogs big as pumpkins, and other unspeakable creatures lived out there in the mangroves and weeds.

The GPS told them to turn right in one mile.

Jonah said, “I'm catching the vibe. Approaching mayhem.”

They went a quarter of a mile, a thought coming to Jonah all at once, a flash of otherworldly inspiration.

“Listen, Mo. I got a what-if for you.”

Moses was silent, waiting.

“What if we don't kill this guy?”

“Then we don't get paid.”

“But, I mean, what if he disappears the way our man wants, but he's not actually dead? We got him prisoner.”

“And why would we do that?”

“So we could grill his ass till we find out what the deal is. Then we figure a way to leverage that into a major payday.”

Moses was silent. He drove, ignored two phone calls, drove some more.

“Screw our benefactor? The man's been good to us.”

“He's exploiting us. Using us for scut work. We're his bitches, man.”

“No way. Too dangerous.”

“Just think about it. We interrogate this guy. Find out what kind of scam he's into, why our guy wants him terminated. Turn that into a bargaining chip. For once in our fucking lives we negotiate from a position of strength.”

Moses was silent. Driving slower.

“That could work, right? How's the big guy know the difference? This Thorn creature disappears. We get our two grand. Once we have the lowdown, we use what Thorn tells us to better our position.”

“You talking about blackmail?”

“I'm talking about finding a way to cut ourselves into whatever's going down.”

“What if Thorn doesn't know why he's being whacked?”

“He'll know. Shit, everybody knows why they're being whacked.”

“But if he doesn't?”

“Okay. So if he comes up empty, I snuff him later, and nobody's the wiser.”

Moses continued to slow. Then he looked over at Jonah.

“This from some TV show you saw?”

“It came from my own freaking creative lizard brain, man. I'm no plagiarist.”

Moses was down to five miles an hour. The electric motor kicking in. The whir of it humming through the floor.

“Maybe you're not crazy,” Moses said. “Or maybe I'm losing it.”

“So you like it?”

“Keep him where?”

“You want to work those phones the rest of your life, Moses? 'Cause that's what I see. Scribble down this bid, that bid. A hundred here, a hundred there. Paying our room and board from taking those hunters out to shoot big dumb animals. Just scraping by.”

“Keep him where?”

“The pit,” Jonah said.

“The pit?”

“Place I found near the cabin, back in the second pasture. I told you about it. I cut a hatch in the wood cover to see what was down there, you know that place.”

“Put him in the pit.”

“Yeah, dump him down there, we can interrogate the guy to our heart's content. Our own private Guantanamo.”

The voice on the GPS told them to turn right in two hundred feet. Moses slowed the Prius, made the turn, heading up a dark bumpy road.

“Say yes, Moses. Come on. You know it's a good idea.”

There were a dozen cars parked along the shoulder. Junkers and a few nicer models, a couple of pickups, some Harleys.

Ahead about a hundred yards the night was lit up. There was the thump of a heavy bass, rock music, loud speakers, a band maybe.

“Somebody's having a party,” Moses said.

“Thought this guy was a hermit, just him and the girl out in the woods.”

“Apparently hermits have parties.”

“Your destination is in one hundred feet,” said the GPS. “This could be a very dumb idea,” Moses said. “This could come back to bite us in the nutsack.”

“You have arrived at your destination,” the GPS woman said.

“We've arrived,” Jonah said, grinning, and put his fist up for a bump.

Moses shook his head one more time.

Then he raised his fist and went knuckle to knuckle with his kid brother.

 

 

THORN WAS DUMPING ICE FROM
plastic bags into the washtub where the last of the Red Stripe bobbed in tepid water. He was in the kitchen next to the tile-covered island where all the chips and dips and carrots and celery and burgers and buns and fried grouper fingers and shrimp and fish tacos and condiments had been set out neatly a few hours ago. Now the kitchen was in disarray. Since sunset dozens of people had wandered in and out, helping themselves to food and drink—not many neat freaks among them. Friends, and friends of friends, and complete strangers who heard about the party on Key Largo's coconut telegraph.