“Nice boat, George. Solid, seaworthy. Yours or theirs?”
“Rich uncle.”
“Confiscated by the DEA.” He smiled. “I’m gonna blow it up anyway. Your head must hurt. Kurt’s excitable, he thought he’d probably killed you. Frankly, I didn’t expect to find you so alert.”
“My head feels like an asshole that’s had a cherry bomb go off in it.”
Martin laughed again. “Very descriptive. You should have been a comedian. Laughing in the face of impossible odds is an admirable trait.”
Spivey nodded.
“Kurt had to neutralize you because I couldn’t have so dangerous an adversary walking about while I was tidying up and getting under sail.” There was a note of sarcasm in the word “dangerous.”
“Dangerous? Wait until you see what’s coming next.”
“I’m terrified,” he said flatly. “What are you, shadow man, CIA? Dark angel?”
“How did you know I wasn’t Reid Dietrich?”
“It’s elementary, my dear Watson. The Reid Dietrich living in Atlanta was seventy-five years old. His son, the one whose identity you absorbed, was killed in a car accident in college. The company you supposedly own consists of a girl with a telephone in a depressing building in Fort Lauderdale. If the phone rings, she says the name of the company. If anyone asks for you, she says she’ll take a message. Very large woman by the name of Trudy Winters.”
Reid tried to clear his eyes-his vision was blurred and he couldn’t hear out of his right ear. “Very impressive.” He readied the pistol, which was wedged between his leg and the wall. He could hit Martin, but he didn’t know where Kurt Steiner was.
Martin moved to the dresser and sat on the edge. “Whose voice do you answer to?”
“I’m freelance.”
“The CIA paying your expenses?”
“Pick any initials. They all want a piece of you.”
“DEA?”
Spivey turned his head away.
“Very good. I underestimated them. What am I worth dead to Masterson?”
“Not Masterson. Robertson. Seven-fifty.”
Martin stood and glowered down at his adversary. “Time is growing short. Where do you want it?”
Martin pulled out his Browning. 380 and slowly screwed on the silencer. “Been too much loud noise around here tonight. Hate to alarm the children prematurely. You’re a pro. Pick it-heads or hearts.”
“Listen, Fletcher. There’s no reason to kill me. I’ve lost the game because I didn’t know how good you were, didn’t believe it. But you are. Let me go. I can’t hurt you now.”
“What about Laura and the children?”
“The spoils of the battle. I’ll do something else as a show of good faith. T.C.”
“What about him? He’s paying you to take me out.”
“He expanded the hit.”
“Yes?”
“He wanted me to take Masterson out.”
“T.C. wants Masterson snuffed!” Martin laughed as he removed the magazine, checked it, then pulled the receiver back and peered inside as if checking for grime in the breech. He locked it, returned the magazine, and released the catch feeding the chamber. “That’s rich!” he said. “Do you think he’d pay me on that contract?”
“Let me go and I’ll do T.C. Robertson for free.”
“I would love to but I just can’t. Wouldn’t be fair to the other people who’ve lost to me.”
Reid swung the Glock up and aimed it at Martin’s chest.
“How about you lose,” he said as he pulled the trigger. There was a dry snap.
Martin smiled, his eyes coldly pleased. “Oh, George. And we were becoming so close. I’m afraid you’re typical of the kids today. No loyalty. No honesty.” Martin blew air through his lips and inhaled slowly. “Try again.”
George Spivey cleared the round with difficulty as Martin watched with a look approaching boredom. The heavy nine-millimeter round fell to the floor, and he pulled the trigger again. Another dry click.
“Wet ammo? Like a bad dream, isn’t it? No bullets, removed firing pin? Perhaps it happened when I was searching the boat and found your little cubbyhole. And the phony identifications. I guessed Spivey’s was the real driver’s license because that picture was the least flattering.” Martin aimed the pistol at Reid’s chest. “I know you were just doing your job. And I know you’re as harmless as a Christmas-tree ornament. But I don’t see where it is in my best interest to leave you sliding about on the floor like a seal. I might trip over you.”
Reid closed his eyes, then opened them to meet Martin’s, and nodded.
The sharp pop of the silenced pistol filled the small room, the shell casing bounced off the low ceiling, hit the paneled wall, and clic-clattered across the bureau. Reid’s pistol, still clenched in his fist, tipped onto the floor. There was a small black hole in Reid’s chest, which slowly filled with blood. The dark liquid bubbled out and ran in a thin line around his ribs and began swelling onto the carpet. Reid’s eyes reflected the shock of his new situation, and then the lids closed halfway down and locked.
“How soon it all comes to an end.” Martin dropped the gun to the side of his leg, put a hand to his chest, and looked down at George Spivey. “It’s so like poetry,” Martin said. He stepped into the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and used a wet washcloth to wipe the splatters of Spivey’s blood from his face. Then he turned out the light and closed the door gently.
Laura… it’s Marty,” he sang as he pressed the lever knob on the V berth’s door. “I think we should talk now. How are those delightful children of yours? I’ve been thinking about you all for such a long time.”
“I’ve got a gun, Fletcher!” Her voice was solid, determined.
“Oh, please don’t shoot me through the door.” He tapped again, harder.
He heard the dry click of the Glock and smiled. “I hope it isn’t one of those guns from inside the bed. Reid had terrible luck with his. I think they must be of faulty manufacture. I can kick the door in, but I’d rather not destroy such a nice piece of wood. So you just come out.” He sat down on the couch. “Take your time, within reason… Waiting makes it better in the end.”
Thirty seconds passed before the door was unlocked and the knob, a brass lever, made a quarter turn. The door opened slowly and Laura stepped out, closing the door behind her-her body forming a protective shield. There was the sound of its being locked again from the inside. She stood defiantly erect, her arms crossed over her breasts, her chin up.
He patted the couch cushion. “Please, Laura, join me. Let’s catch up.”
She looked around and saw her purse on the coffee table by Martin’s foot. She had tucked her. 38 into it before they’d left the house.
“What did you do to Woody?”
“He’s worked so hard, I thought he deserved a nap. He is a feisty bastard.”
“And Reid?”
“This is the life, Laura,” he said. “The open seas-something really exciting about this, don’t you think? Brings out the swashbuckler in a man.”
“We didn’t do anything to you, Martin.”
“That’s true, Laura. But your ex-husband did.”
“Your problem’s with Paul, not us.”
“How do you like my new face?”
She looked at him, studying the features. He looked like a man of forty-two or so. Nothing unusual or attractive about the face. The eyes were like the eyes of something dead, or something that had never quite been alive. He was well-built, muscles tense under the skin like spring steel. He was grinding his jaws between speech, and he seemed steady and fidgety at the same time. Speed.
“You look different.”
“Better?”
“Fishing for a compliment?”
“Fishing. Interesting choice of words.”
“What are you planning to do with us?”
