Fletcher had joined Paul’s group as an adviser and had pulled strings to do that. Paul hadn’t felt comfortable with it, but the argument was that the group needed an objective observer, someone who knew the ropes and had experience dealing with Latin American drug cartels. He had pulled his weight, certainly hadn’t done anything overtly suspicious. But things started to happen. Deep-cover agents started disappearing. Most of them were working close to the two main cartels based in Colombia. Two had been in Mexico, working to uncover corrupt government officials.
Martin Fletcher had been getting sensitive intelligence somehow. Paul was certain he had purchased it, or possibly used blackmail to get it. Paul committed his theory to a report and passed the word upstairs. They knew that the cartels had a man on the inside of the DEA but couldn’t seem to get hard evidence. Paul knew it was Martin. Knew it in his heart. But proof was never forthcoming. So word had come down that the leak had to be plugged. Paul had plugged it by having evidence planted. Martin had been arrested, tried, and convicted. Paul had somehow believed that would be the end of it. With most men it would have been.
So Martin Fletcher hated Paul because Paul had been personally responsible for his arrest, his fall from grace. Death was unimportant to Fletcher, because in the world Martin inhabited, death was always a choice, a slipup or a few seconds away. Martin was an animal who operated near the top of a complex feeding chain-eat or be eaten. It was a life that depended on knowledge, sharp reflexes, planning, lack of conscience, and flawless intuition. Paul had defeated him and humiliated him. Killing him, the alternative, would have been understandable, even forgivable, in Martin’s mind.
Paul had known that Martin would come for him one day unless he was, as rumor had it, dead. He thought it was possible that the others had been killed first and the confession made so Paul would be forced to come out to play. Because the fact was Martin could have killed Paul at any time over the past years. Maybe he planned to kill the Masterson family while Paul watched from the sidelines, helplessly. He would enjoy that. If it was Martin, Paul was no match for him. A team might beat him, if it was the right group.
Paul closed his eyes and imagined Martin as he had known him. In Paul’s mind Martin had grown to mythical proportions. He was ten feet tall, had the instincts of a cougar, and was as strong as something hydraulic. Has a day ever passed that Marty didn’t cross my mind, soil some pleasant thought? Paul was afraid of him-deeply afraid. Maybe that, more than the other reasons, was why he had really hidden himself here. Paul felt as if Martin Fletcher were working the strings and they were leading from his hands to Paul’s life.
Paul looked at the wild beard one last time. He pressed the scissors against the jawline and squeezed. The first cut is the deepest, he thought as a bird’s-nest-sized clump of beard floated down to the basin.
Sunlight was-just beginning to sear the bottom of the sky with a light crimson band. Aaron was dressed and standing in the kitchen brewing coffee in an electric aluminum percolator. Something moved in the window, and as the back door opened he turned and was face-to-face with a beardless Paul Masterson. His nephew’s hair was combed back against his head, and the beard had been replaced with a large handlebar mustache. He opened the kitchen door and Paul stepped inside.
“Paul. Hell, son, I’ve seen happier faces in a proctology ward.”
“Coffee smells good,” Paul offered.
“I reckon you want some of it?” The old man frowned. “Never see you unless you want something. Bet you want the top of the brew?”
“Give me some of that burned syrupy stuff off the bottom, like you usually do.”
“Where’s your pals? Shit-faced I bet. Look like serious whiskey drinkers to me. Looks like you had a few yourself.” The old man poured two cups of coffee, replaced the pot on the stove, and sat. “Now, that’s hot.”
“Good, the heat’ll take the top layer off my tongue, cover some of the taste,” Paul said, taking a tentative sip. “Joe McLean does a right good jig with the bottle. Thorne’s a teetotaler. Alcohol doesn’t agree with his personality.”
They were silent for a long time as they sipped, steam rolling up over their cheeks.
“Never fails to amaze me what you can do to perfectly good coffee beans.”
“It’s free, ain’t it? You can get a twenty-five-cent cup of muddy water down the street anytime.”
“Too far to walk.”
“So when you pullin’ out?” The old man cocked his eyes up into Paul’s and frowned.
“Because I cut that beard off? You think I’m leaving because I shaved?”
“Well, ain’t you?”
“Couple of hours.”
“Knew them fellows showing up was bad news. It’s that guy you warned me might come looking for you, ain’t it? He’s up to somethin’?”
Paul took another swallow of coffee and nodded. “Killed eight women and children. The men who were in here-it was their families. Plus Rainey Lee’s two kids and wife, too.”
“Someone thinks you can catch him? Probably right.”
“Fact is I don’t think I can. But I have to try. He’s gonna go for Laura and the kids.”
“I see. Then there ain’t nothin’ else to say.”
“I wanted to say-”
“Listen, Pauly. Don’t get all teary-eyed like your mama used to. I’ll watch your place. You go on down there and take care of your business without a worry. Not that you ever did much worryin’ on my account. Old man with no one to leave the enterprise to. Go on. But I want your word that when that rat bastard is cold, you’ll come home and bring those kids for a visit. Might be one of them might want to run this place. Never know.”
“Never know.” Paul smiled. “I don’t imagine they want anything to do with me.”
There was another period when the two men were lost in their individual thoughts. Then Aaron stood up. “I want you to take something with you.” He started out into the store, came back five minutes later with a narrow walnut box about three feet long and a small cardboard one. He placed them on the table.
The old man removed the masking tape to free the flaps. He opened the cardboard box and pulled out a black leather shoulder-holster rig. The holster and the belting were hand-tooled in ivy leaves. Paul stared at it without comment. The gun was a Colt Combat Commander with stag grips.
“Remember this?” Aaron asked.
“Yes. I wasn’t sure what happened to it.”
“DEA sent it after you got here. I didn’t know if you’d ever want it back.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not selling it.” He stared at the old man for a few seconds before his mouth turned up at the corners.
“Think I wasn’t tempted. Rig like this is worth six or seven hundred to the right fool.”
Paul picked up the weapon and looked at it. He dropped the magazine and inspected the chamber.
“It’s clean!” the old man said defensively.
Aaron turned his attention to the wooden box. He removed a nail from an ancient hasp and slid the top back, revealing a burgundy velvet-lined interior. He lifted a long black cane from inside and handed it to Paul.
“I remember this. Haven’t seen it since I was a kid.”
Paul couldn’t believe the heft of it. The hand grip was L-shaped and made of hand-carved ivory. The base of the cane was black and shone like dark glass all the way to the fancy filigree sterling tip.
“Take it with you,” Aaron said.
“It’s even more magnificent than I remembered,” Paul said. “Must weigh ten pounds. You reckon I’m that cripple, do you?”
“It’s weighty for a reason, and you don’t have to be cripple to need it. Look at the tip.”
Paul admired the cane. The handle told the story, in bas relief, of a gunfight, with one man standing tall and the other falling wounded. Paul flipped the cane and looked at the tip, where carved silver circled a black hole.
Aaron took the cane from Paul and twisted the handle. It opened, exposing a breech. He dropped in a brass shell and closed the breech. Then he raised the cane and pointed at a large wooden beam, and there was a deafening explosion. Paul stood and put his finger on the new hole in the wood.
“This old cane has an interesting history,” Aaron said. “Can’t recall exactly what it was, but it had to do with a gambler. Made by a famous gunsmith from a design the gambler worked out in a dream or some such. Had the handle carved in Frisco by a Chinese artist in 1880. Rod is ebony from Africa, covers a rifle barrel. Silver tip’s from
