anyway. My loft might not be in the most public locale, but there is a nightclub beneath it, which makes it sort of an odd place to assassinate someone, but no less odd than a brightly lit parking lot swarming with people.
Better safe than dead.
“So you two have met,” I said. “That’s nice.”
“Alex was just telling me about your performance this afternoon.”
“Vintage work,” Alex said.
“Thank you,” I said. “Fiona? A word?” Fiona slid off the hood of the Charger and I took her by the arm and guided her a few steps away.
I smiled.
It was the only way I could keep from screaming.
“Care to explain?”
“He was trying to break into your car to leave you a message,” she said. “I offered to sit with him instead and we’d wait for you together.”
“That makes perfect sense,” I said.
“He’s off the clock, Michael.”
“A guy like him is never off the clock,” I said.
“Anyway,” Fiona said, “I explained to him that we didn’t appreciate his meddling in our business with Gennaro. It’s not his place, professionally, to get between you and your ability to make a living. I think he respected my honesty. Of course, I had a gun pointed at his midsection at the time.” She licked her Popsicle. “But he was even kind enough to purchase me this lovely frozen treat afterward. He’s been very polite.”
“I’m happy to hear you’ve bonded,” I said.
“He’s very friendly.”
“He threatened to kill Nate today,” I said.
Fiona considered this. “No one is the ideal,” she said. “And anyway, I made him put all of his guns in your trunk. He’s an unarmed man now.”
“How did you manage that?” I said and dangled my keys in front of her.
“I have my own set now,” she said.
“Since when?”
“You have your secrets,” she said, “I have mine.”
We stepped back over to the car, and Fi sat back down on the hood next to Alex.
“Where’s Spock?” Alex said.
“Pardon me?”
“Well,” he said, “you’re the Captain Kirk here, right? And my new friend must be Bones. Where is Spock? Big guy? Drinks a lot? Lost his dog this morning? Because I can only assume that your brother-Slade, is that right? — is not the center of logic in your operation. More like one of those guys in red who beams down and dies first.”
“You’d be surprised,” I said.
Alex shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe. I’m surprised you’re in the extortion business now, so there’s that.”
“You do what you have to do,” I said. “We all have to eat. Luckily, I happen to like what I do, just like you.”
“You like to kill women and children now, too?”
“That’s my job,” Fiona said. “Michael doesn’t have the stomach for it.”
Alex took that in. “Oh, I doubt that,” he said after a time. “There are children in some developing nations who run screaming when they see a pair of sunglasses and a nice smile.”
“What are we doing here?” I said.
“Three adults having a conversation,” Alex said.
“Your boss know you’re here?”
“He’s not my boss,” Alex said. “Just a consulting job. Something to pass the time. Keep my friends employed. Like I said. I found myself in Miami and needed some work.”
“You just found yourself here?”
“Well, no,” he said. “I came here to kill you. Brought my whole team.”
Fiona nodded at me. “See, Michael, I told you he was polite.”
“Who sent you?” I said.
“Who didn’t? There are open contracts on you all across the world. I figured I’d claim them all.”
“And yet here I am.”
“We could have taken you out a dozen times,” he said. “You don’t exactly put yourself in the best company. Cut-rate arms dealers. Bank robbers. Forgers. Russians. That whack job Larry. Not exactly the Dirty Dozen.”
“You know Larry?” I said.
“I did some work with him in Kosovo,” Alex said.
“Was this before or after he was dead?”
“After,” he said. “But he’s one who’s done it right. Sticks by his principles. Makes a good living. You, you’re not even using your skills anymore. Just a petty crook half the time. And this business with the Ottones. The Michael Westen I heard about all these years would have put Dinino down for what he’s doing with that girl, wouldn’t have even bothered to extort from him. It’s disgraceful, if you want my opinion, but like you said, we all have to eat.”
There was a part of me that wanted to pull out my gun and shoot Alex Kyle between the eyes. It was a part of me that I didn’t particularly like, a part of me that I’d kept pretty well in check since getting back to Miami.
“That’s me,” I said. “Big disgrace.”
We stared at each other for a moment, and I could feel him making decisions, figuring out maybe his information was wrong. “Anyway,” he said, “whoever wants you alive has more power than the people who want you dead. And has better technology. Five times in the last year I thought we had you. Five times I had to claim a corpse.”
“It took you five dead bodies to figure this out?”
Alex shrugged again. “You’re still Michael Westen. I just figured you were hard to kill. I didn’t realize you had guardian angels.”
I looked at Alex sitting there on my Charger. I thought about all the men he’d sent to kill me who had died. Thought about the reasons behind it-pure, unadulterated greed-and felt something surge inside of me.
“Here I am,” I said. “Only person to stop you is Fiona. And you could take her out, I’m sure.”
Alex gave a slight chuckle. “Last guy I sent? Former Army Ranger. Kills on every continent. Damn near had ESP. Whoever is watching you left a note, carved into his back like scrimshaw, letting me know that they were aware of the situation and monitoring it closely and that if anyone was going to kill you, it was going to be them. So you’ll pardon me for not taking you up on your kind offer.”
“Then what are you doing here?” I said.
Alex got off my car and stretched his back, cracked his neck, ran through each knuckle on both of his hands.
“Professional courtesy,” he said. “Mr. Bonaventura decides he wants you dead, there’s nothing I can do about that. You came to him, I didn’t come to you, so the rules are different here. Strictly business, Michael, but not spy business. I want that known.”
“Right,” I said. “You’ll light me the fuck up, as I recall. You’re just not going to be the one to pull the trigger, are you?”
“I’m just a consultant. He kills you, it’s not like I end up any richer. And I don’t claim it. I don’t endorse it. But I will say that you don’t go in and threaten someone like Mr. Bonaventura and not expect recrimination. And while I don’t approve of what you’re doing to Mr. Dinino or Mr. Stefania, that’s your business.”
I could hear some hesitation in Alex’s voice. Gone was the brazen Jarhead of this afternoon and gone, too, was the confident version I found sitting next to Fiona mere minutes previous.
He was pleading for his life.
“Did you endorse killing the guy in front of my house today?”
“That wasn’t me,” he said.
“No?”
“If someone is dead near you, it’s them or it’s because of them. That’s what I’m telling you.”
