Lethal

“If I don’t answer-”

“Forget it.” He waited until the ringing stopped, then nodded toward the cupcakes. “Whose birthday is it?”

“Stan’s. He’s coming for dinner to celebrate.”

“What time? And I don’t advise you to lie to me.”

“Five-thirty.”

He glanced at the wall clock. That was almost eight hours from now. He hoped to have what he was after and be miles away from here by then. A lot depended on Eddie Gillette’s widow and how much she knew about her late husband’s extracurricular activities.

He could tell her fear of him was genuine. But her fear could be based on any number of reasons, one of them being that she wanted to protect what she had and was afraid of him taking it away from her.

Or she could be entirely innocent and afraid only of the danger he posed to her and her kid.

Apparently they lived alone out here in the boondocks. There hadn’t been a trace of a man in the house. So when a bloodstained stranger showed up and threatened the isolated widow with a pistol, she would naturally be afraid.

Although living singly didn’t necessarily equate to virtue, Coburn thought, reminding himself that he lived alone.

Looks could be deceiving, too. She looked innocent enough, especially in the getup she was wearing. The white T-shirt, blue jean shorts, and retro white Keds were as wholesome as home-baked cupcakes. Her blonde hair was in a loose ponytail. Her eyes were hazel, veering toward solid green. She had the scrubbed appearance of the classic all-American girl next door, except that Coburn had never lived next door to anybody who looked as good as she did.

Seeing the skimpy undies on the drying rack in the laundry room had made him realize how long it had been since he’d lain down with a woman. Looking at the soft mounds underneath Honor Gillette’s white T-shirt and her long, smooth legs made him aware of just how much he’d like to end that spell of abstinence.

She must have sensed the track of his thoughts, because when he lifted his gaze from her chest to her eyes, they were regarding him fearfully. Quickly she said, “You’re in a lot of trouble, and you’re only wasting time here. I can’t help you. Eddie didn’t own anything extremely valuable.” She raised her hands at her sides. “You can see for yourself how simply we live. When Eddie died, I had to sell his fishing boat just to make ends meet until I could return to teaching.”

“Teaching.”

“Public school. Second grade. The only thing Eddie left me was a modest life insurance policy that barely covered the cost of his funeral. He’d been with the police department only eight years, so the pension I receive each month isn’t much. It goes directly into Emily’s college fund. I support us on my salary, and there’s little left for extras.”

She paused to take a breath. “You’ve been misinformed, Mr. Coburn. Or you jumped to the wrong conclusion based on rumor. Eddie had nothing valuable and neither do I. If I did, I would gladly hand it over to you in order to protect Emily. I value her life more than anything I could ever own.”

He looked at her thoughtfully for several moments. “Nicely put, but I’m not convinced.” He stood up and reached for her, encircling her biceps again and hauling her up out of her chair. “Let’s start in the bedroom.”

Chapter 4

His street name was Diego.

That’s all he’d ever been called, and, as far as he knew, that was the only name he had. His earliest memory was of a skinny black woman asking him to fetch her cigarettes, or her syringe, and then hurling abuse at him if he was too slow about it.

He didn’t know if she was his mother or not. She didn’t claim to be, but didn’t deny it the one time he’d asked her. He wasn’t black, not entirely. His name was Hispanic, but that didn’t necessarily signify his heritage. In a city of Creoles where mixed bloodlines were historical and commonplace, he was a mongrel.

The woman of his memory had operated a hair-braiding salon. The business was open only when she felt like it, which was seldom. If she needed quick cash, she gave blowjobs in the back room. When Diego was old enough, she sent him out to solicit clients off the streets. He lured in women with the promise of getting the tightest braids in New Orleans. To men, he hinted of other pleasures to be found beyond the glass bead curtain that separated the establishment from the gritty sidewalk.

One day he came in after scrounging for something to eat and found the woman dead on the floor of the filthy bathroom. He stayed until the stink of her got to be too much even for him, then he abandoned the place, leaving her bloated corpse to become somebody else’s problem. From that day on, he had fended for himself. His turf was an area of New Orleans where even angels feared to tread.

He was seventeen years old and wise beyond his years.

His eyes showed it as he looked at the readout on his vibrating cell phone. Private caller. Which translated to The Bookkeeper. He answered with a surly, “Yeah?”

“You sound upset, Diego.”

Pissed, more like it. “You should have used me to take care of Marset. But you didn’t. Now look at the mess you’ve got.”

“So you’ve heard about the warehouse and Lee Coburn?”

“I got a TV. Flat-screen.”

“Thanks to me.”

Diego let that pass without comment. The Bookkeeper didn’t need to know that their working relationship wasn’t exclusive. He did occasional jobs for other clients.

“Guns,” he said scornfully. “They’re noisy. Why shoot up the place? I would have taken out Marset silently, and you wouldn’t have a circus going on down there in Tambour.”

“I needed to send a message.”

Don’t fuck with me, or else. That was the message. Diego supposed that anyone who’d crossed The Bookkeeper, and had heard about the mass murder, was looking over his shoulder this morning. Despite the amateurish handling of Marset’s execution, no doubt it had been an effective wake-up call.

“They haven’t found Lee Coburn yet,” Diego said, almost as a gibe.

“No. I’m closely monitoring the search. I hope they find him dead, but if not, he’ll have to be taken out. And so will anyone he’s had contact with since leaving that warehouse.”

“That’s why you’re calling me.”

“It will be tricky to get close to someone in police custody.”

“I specialize in tricky. I can get close. I always do.”

“Which is why you’re the man for this job, should it become necessary. Your skills would have been wasted on Marset. I needed to make noise and leave a lot of blood. But now that it’s done, I want no loose ends.”

No loose ends. No mercy. The Bookkeeper’s mantra. Anybody who shied away from the wet work usually became the next victim.

A few weeks earlier, a Mexican kid had escaped the overloaded truck that was smuggling him into the States. He and a dozen others were destined for slavery of one type or another. The kid must’ve known what the future held for him. During a refueling stop, while the truck driver was paying for his gasoline, the kid got away.

Fortunately, a state trooper who was on The Bookkeeper’s payroll had found him hitchhiking on the westbound lane of the interstate. The trooper had hidden him and had been ordered to dispose of the problem. But he’d turned squeamish.

The Bookkeeper had contracted Diego to go in and do his dirty work for him. Then, a week after Diego killed the boy, The Bookkeeper hired him to take care of the driver whose carelessness had allowed the kid to escape, along with the trooper who had shown himself to be greedy but gutless.