The Killing Kind (14 page)

“No, we’re not, on account of I was born just yesterday on the back of a turnip truck.”

“Okay then, smart-ass—what’s the job?”

The target was a guy by the name of Eric Purkhiser. From what Les could gather via the Council’s coded communiqués, Purkhiser was the Atlanta Outfit’s very own IT guy—at least until he took them for a cool twenty-eight mil in some kind of computerized wire-transfer scheme and then turned stoolie for the Feds, decimating their operation in the process.

The bounty for the hit was $25K. The instructions were to make it as public and as messy as possible—and they wanted Purkhiser dead by the weekend. Guess the Atlanta mob wanted to discourage the employees of their so-called legitimate business interests from pilfering the office supplies—or ratting them out to the FBI. They get so touchy about that.

“You get the name of the hitter they’re sending?”

“Yeah. Leonwood. You heard of him?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell. See what you can dig up on him— pics, also-knowns, MO.”

“Will do.”

“They know where this Purkhiser is?” Hendricks asked.

“Yup. Missouri.”

“How’d they find him?”

“Dumb fucking luck,” Les said. “As in Purkhiser ain’t got none. Check your e-mail.”

Lester had forwarded along an attachment that proved to be a scan of Purkhiser’s Georgia driver’s license, now long expired, as well as a URL. The URL led to a piece in the Springfield, Missouri,
News-Leader,
dated yesterday, about a local Gadget Shack employee named Eddie Palomera who’d hit the jackpot playing slots at a Kansas City casino to the tune of over six million dollars. Article asked him how he felt. “Lucky” was his reply.

Only Eddie Palomera of Springfield, Missouri, didn’t seem so lucky to Hendricks. Because Eddie Palomera’s stupid mug was smiling back at him from his computer screen, and he looked an awful lot like a stoolie IT guy named Eric Purkhiser.

Hendricks guessed WITSEC figured if they stashed a guy in a town called Springfield, even if somebody let it slip, the bad guys’d have to search every Springfield in the country before they found the right one.

Then again, maybe Purkhiser
was
lucky. After all, between what he stole from the Atlanta Outfit and what he won playing the slots, he had enough money to cover Hendricks’s fee sixty times over.

Which meant he might live long enough to spend the rest.

14

Hendricks had spent some time in bombed-out villages. Weathered snowstorms in drafty mountain caves. Holed up for days in squat concrete bunkers full of frightened, unwashed soldiers. But he didn’t think he’d ever been anywhere more depressing than Westlake Plaza on a Monday afternoon.

The old mall was ten minutes outside of Springfield, Missouri, an ugly splotch of asphalt and yellow brick amid the farmland west of Lake Springfield. When they built it in the early eighties, they must have figured folks from town would be eager to make the scenic drive. But most weren’t, and eventually, Westlake Plaza was supplanted by more modern facilities closer to the city center. Now it was a tired, old collection of tired, old stores whose staff and customers came and went more out of reluctant habit than any real desire.

Hendricks eyed the elderly mall-walkers, suburban housewives, and Hot Topic goths with an anthropologist’s detachment. Most weren’t shopping so much as passing time. He wondered why they’d chosen to hang out here instead of the much larger, sleeker Battlefield Mall a few miles north. Maybe they found some comfort in the faded glory of a time gone by. Maybe they simply preferred the quiet. Hendricks could relate to that, at least—but in their place, he would have chosen the lakeside park instead.

Hendricks wasn’t here to shop or to kill time. He was here to find his new client.

He’d tried Purkhiser’s home address first, of course— a drab split-level in a neighborhood full of them—but the driveway was empty, the garage piled high with junk. He considered breaking in and waiting, but the schedule for this hit was tight—he couldn’t afford to waste time sitting around, waiting for his potential client to show up.

That’s what he told himself, at least.

The truth was, seeing Evie pregnant with Stuart’s child had rattled Hendricks, and calling off the Long Beach job had left him antsy. What he needed was distraction, not time alone with his thoughts.

What he needed was to work.

The Gadget Shack wasn’t busy. No Gadget Shack Hendricks had ever been in was. There were two guys behind the counter, dressed identically in store-branded polo shirts and khakis. One was a rumpled teenager, pudgy and long-haired, with a thin wisp of peach fuzz on his upper lip. The other was older, neater, and fussier—a manager, by the look of him. Neither of them was Purkhiser. Hendricks wasn’t surprised. If he’d just won six million bucks, he wouldn’t be caught dead peddling RC cars and Y-adapters, either.

But home address and job were all Hendricks had on the man, so he figured he’d come here anyway and shake the tree.

“Can I help you?” the manager asked. Chad, according to his name tag.

Hendricks flashed him a smile. “Maybe—is Eddie around?”

Chad’s eyes narrowed. “Palomera? What do you want with
him?
”

“He helped me out big-time a few weeks back. I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d swing by and tell him thanks.”

“If he helped you out, you’d be the first. Guy was the worst employee I’ve ever had,” he said, casting a sidelong glance at the teenager standing next to him. “And that’s saying something.”

“Was?”

“He up and quit a couple days ago. Didn’t even think to tell me. I found out when I called to ask him why he didn’t show up for his shift.”

“So you don’t know where I could find him, then?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he said brusquely, and drifted off toward the only other customer, a woman eyeing a display of smartphones. Apparently, a friend of Eddie’s was no friend of his.

“What a douche,” the kid behind the counter muttered. His name tag read Brody and had a faded sticker of the Punisher logo affixed to one corner.

Hendricks sized him up—a little shaggy, a little nerdy, with a woven-hemp necklace and sly, heavy-lidded eyes. When Hendricks bounced that off the image of Purkhiser that Lester’s file had painted, he decided Brody and Purkhiser were probably friendly, if not friends. “You ain’t kidding. Any chance you know where Eddie is?”

“Seems like you wanna find him pretty bad—how come?”

Hendricks made a show of looking left and right, then dropped his voice. “He told me how to splice into my neighbor’s cable. Made it sound so easy, I figured it was too good to be true. So he bet me twenty bucks that it’d work. It did, and now I’m trying to make good.”

Brody laughed. “That sounds like Eddie, all right—but he doesn’t need your twenty. He hit it big last week at the casino. That’s why he quit. Said fuck this job—he didn’t need it anymore.”

“Still,” Hendricks said, “a deal’s a deal. I’ll throw in a twenty for you, too, if you can point me in the right direction.”

The Starlite Arcade was adjacent to the food court. The place wasn’t vintage or retro or hipster-ironic, just old—a relic from another time. Black lights shone down from a water-stained drop ceiling. At the center of the room was an air hockey table, glowing beneath the lights. On the far wall was a bank of Skee-Ball lanes. Beside them, a claw machine was piled high with stuffed animals. Everywhere else, arcade games blipped and emitted random bursts of stilted dialogue all by themselves.

An unshaven man with an Atari T-shirt stretched across his beer gut and a quarter dispenser on his belt was nodding off atop a stool inside the entrance, his back propped against the wall, one arm resting on a Jimmy Fund gumball machine. It wasn’t hard to see why he was bored. The arcade only had one customer.

Eric Purkhiser was in his early thirties—wiry and slouch-shouldered in a bowling shirt and skinny jeans. His rockabilly pompadour and wallet chain glinted in the black light. His face was lit by the glow of the Galaga cabinet he was hunched over.

Purkhiser was a rarity among Hendricks’s would-be clients. He’d testified against the Mob, which meant he knew damn well there were people out there who wanted him dead. Hendricks figured that’d make him a little jumpy. But Purkhiser didn’t even glance at him when he sidled up to watch him play.

Purkhiser’s eyes flitted across the screen as he piloted his spaceship left and right, shooting teeming swarms of pixelated insects. The speed at which they came at him was astonishing, and Purkhiser’s score was climbing steadily toward one million—he must have been playing awhile.

“That’s a hell of a score,” Hendricks said.

“Shhh,” Purkhiser hissed. He slammed the joystick hard left and smacked the fire button repeatedly, to no avail. His ship exploded. Purkhiser cursed.

The game prompted him to enter his initials. It appeared he’d taken second place. First place read KNH. Once Purkhiser put in his initials, second through eighth read ELP. “Thanks, asshole—you just cost me my high score! It’s the last one in the whole joint I don’t hold.”

Hendricks glanced at the machine beside him—some Technicolor monstrosity called Mr. Do! Sure enough, the top score was held by ELP. “I’m sure you’ll get it next time,” he said mildly.

“Maybe—but I’m running out of next times,” Purkhiser replied. “Come Friday, I’m leaving Springfield and never looking back. Onward and upward. Sayonara and good rid

dance. I just hope I beat this fucking thing before I go.”

“Why?”

“A fella’s gotta leave his mark somehow. Ain’t no point floating through life like a ghost.” Purkhiser took a quarter from his pocket and rolled it idly up and down his knuckles. The move looked more practiced than cool. “Wait— why’re you so interested in me and my high score? You’re not KNH, are you?”

“No, Eric—I’m not KNH. But I am here to talk to you.”

At the mention of his real name, Purkhiser blanched. The quarter fell from his hand.

“What did you call me?”

“You heard me fine the first time.”

“My name’s not Eric, it’s Eddie. You must have me confused with someone else.”

“I don’t. Now, listen: you’re in danger. I’m here to help you get back out of it. I can explain more once we’re somewhere safe. But you have to come with me right now, okay?”

Purkhiser swallowed hard. Nodded slowly.

Then he shoved Hendricks and bolted.

Hendricks sighed. Fine, he thought—we’ll play it your way.

At the sound of Purkhiser fleeing the arcade, the sole employee jerked awake and rose, startled, from his stool. Purkhiser grabbed him by the shoulders and propelled him toward Hendricks with all he had. He threw the stool at Hendricks, too, and knocked down the gumball machine on his way out of the arcade. The former sailed wide and slammed into a Donkey Kong machine. The latter shattered when it hit the floor, scattering shards of glass and gumballs everywhere.

Hendricks caught the stunned arcade employee, steadying him before he toppled over. Then he took off after Purkhiser at a sprint, gumballs crunching underfoot.

Purkhiser cut across the food court, climbing tables and knocking over chairs—anything to separate himself from Hendricks. When he peeked back over his shoulder, he slammed into a man in an apron, sending a tray of Panda Express samples flying. Both men went down, but Purkhiser bounced back up like he was spring-loaded. He winged the empty tray in Hendricks’s direction and took off down the hall toward Westlake Plaza’s main concourse.

Hendricks closed the gap between them, ignoring shouts of anger and alarm from those he passed. He ignored the mall’s security cameras, too; they were hardwired to the security booth—a dated system—and he’d cut their feed as soon as he’d arrived. But if he didn’t calm Purkhiser down soon, mall security was going to be an issue. Even if they were armed, they didn’t pose much of a threat, but if he had to hurt one of them it would no doubt make the evening news.

Purkhiser dodged his way down the broad hall—trying his best to put as many people between him and Hendricks as he could. Hendricks juked around an old man on a Rascal scooter and leapt over a stroller when a panicked mother froze.