“So you just walked?”
“I had to,” Quinn said. He turned to his apprentice. “We don’t need to know everything. That’s not our job. But to do it right, sometimes there are things we have to know.”
He started to tell Nate about his meeting with Stafford. When he reached the point where he questioned the man about the discovery of the body, his cell phone rang. He pulled it out, looked at the display, then frowned. He knew the call would come, but it didn’t make him happy.
“This is Quinn.”
“I understand you’re not interested in helping us out.” The high pitch of his voice was unmistakable. Jorge Albina.
Based out of San Francisco, Albina was an expert at getting things in and out of the country. Money, people, guns, and apparently now bodies, too. His services didn’t come cheap, but his success rate was one of the best in the business.
“We can pretend that’s the reason if it helps,” Quinn said. “It doesn’t help if it’s not the truth.” “That’s exactly where you and I agree.” There was silence. “Stafford told me you just left. No reason,” Albina said. “He was mistaken.” “That’s not an answer.” Quinn took a deep breath. “Jorge, what’s the most important part
of my job?” There was a hesitation. “Whatever I say is going to be the wrong answer.” “Not if you really thought about it,” Quinn said. “But I’ll tell you. Trust.” “Trust,” Albina said as if he was trying out the word for the first time.
“Yes. See, you’re trusting me with the knowledge of what happened, aren’t you? You’re trusting me to get rid of a problem so that it won’t surface later, right? And you’re trusting me that I’ll never use what I’ve learned against you. Seems pretty important to me.”
“A little dramatic, don’t you think?” Albina said, irritation creeping into his voice. “You’re a cleaner. Your job is simple. Just get rid of the body.”
The muscles around Quinn’s mouth tensed. “You know, you’re right. It’s the simplest job in the world. So I’m sure you can find someone else to help you from now on.”
“Wait,” Albina said. “Okay. I’m sorry. I know what you do isn’t easy. And I trust you, all right? I trust you.”
Quinn took a deep breath. “I have to trust
He could hear Albina take a long, low breath on the other end. “So where was the issue?”
“I asked your man how the container got there, who discovered the body, and why they called him. He lied.”
Albina sighed. “Look, two days ago I received a phone call, okay? I was told a package was on its way to me. Something for me personally. I was given the name of the ship, the
“Who was the call from?” Quinn asked.
“I don’t know. It was ID’d as a Hawaiian number, but that was a dead end. Who knows where it really came from?”
“Man or woman?”
“Man.”
“But you didn’t recognize the voice,” Quinn said.
“No. I didn’t.”
Quinn contemplated for a moment. This explanation made a hell of a lot more sense than what he’d been told at the warehouse. But Albina was a smoother operator than Stafford, better at lying, so Quinn wasn’t ready to trust the information yet.
“Is your decision not to help a final one?” Albina asked.
“Who’s the dead guy?” Quinn asked. “One of your people?”
He had seen the body for only a few moments, and even then it had been bloated and discolored.
“Is that really something you need to know?” Albina said.
“It is now.”
Albina was silent for several seconds. “Not one of mine,” he finally said. “The man on the phone told me the dead guy’s name was Steven Markoff. I’ve never heard of him.”
Quinn tensed, his eyes frozen on the road ahead, but his voice remained neutral. “Markoff?”
“Yeah. He spelled it for me. M-A-R-K-O-F-F. You know him?”
“Name’s not familiar.”
“Whoever the hell he is, I just need to get rid of him.” Albina hesitated a moment. “It’s my fault Stafford lied to you. My orders. I just didn’t want to get dragged into this more than necessary.” Another pause. “I need your help.”
Quinn knew Albina was holding something back. Only now it didn’t matter.
“Quinn?” Albina asked.
“If I do this, you need to follow my instructions exactly,” Quinn said. “No questions, no deviations.”
