Ridgefield, headed south on Highway 33.
In the passenger seat, I believe I see Risina smile, but I’m already thinking of ditching this car and finding another one.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Risina and I are in New York, holed up in the St. Regis Hotel on East 55th Street. I have more money than I know what to do with and it might be safer to break my routine and stay somewhere with a little more polish than the usual unkempt inns I frequent when on assignment. Over the years, I collected staggering fees for completing my work. Since the money held no allure for me, I rarely spent any of it; instead, I socked it away in accounts all over the world. My fence kept credit cards up to date for me, and I have safety deposit boxes in over a dozen major cities containing the right plastic and right identities. Holding two of them in my wallet right now reminds me how important it is to find a new fence when this is over if Archie doesn’t come out of it alive.
I like New York and its dense population. It’s an easy city to get lost in; it’s often advantageous to be a needle in a stack of needles.
I need to work out my thoughts. Usually, I’ll just talk to myself, but it’s nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of. “I think Spilatro put the wheels in motion by kidnapping Archie and then watched them turn. He marked Smoke the whole way, and everything played out how he hoped. I get summoned out of hiding, delivered to his door. He doesn’t want to negotiate though, doesn’t want to talk, just wants to kill me. Hence the collapsed scaffolding. But that didn’t work.”
“Then why didn’t he pop you with a bullet when we walked through Kirschenbaum’s front door? When he could’ve surprised us?”
“You think I’d’ve let him? I don’t get surprised, Risina. I was prepared for a bodyguard to pull a gun. I just wasn’t prepared for that bodyguard to be Spilatro.”
She considers that for a moment, then, “But why? Why does he want to kill you? You’ve never encountered him before. He hasn’t been linked to any of your past jobs, has he?”
“I don’t know yet. If I had a good fence like Archie, or even a half-decent one like Smoke, at my disposal, he could be gathering information on Spilatro right now to help me figure out the connection between him and me. But I don’t.”
She runs her hands through her hair, a habit that gives away when she’s stumped. She opens her mouth but I interrupt, “There is one thing we have to do now…”
“What?”
“In response to a kidnapping, the family usually follows a playbook. They get a ransom note and focus on what the kidnapper wants. They look at the ask and the risks and make a decision whether or not to give the kidnapper his demands, hoping for some sort of break after the exchange, after their loved one is returned safely. But they’re looking at it backwards.
“If Archie is still alive-and that’s a big ‘if’ as far as I’m concerned-then giving me up isn’t going to get us anywhere. He’ll kill me, then kill Archie. There’s only one way to take down a kidnapper.. you have to find something or someone he loves and take it from him. Flip the game on his head.”
Her eyes track and her head nods as she sees it. “We kidnap something of his right back.”
“That’s right. Then see if he wants to talk to us about making an exchange. Not Archibald Grant for me. Those are his terms, his playbook. We take something or someone Spilatro holds precious and make the exchange about that. We have the leverage. Not him.”
“We stay on offense like you said before.”
“Exactly. But listen to me, Risina, this is going to get worse, much worse. It’s going to get brutal, it’s going to get ugly, and we’re probably going to have to spill some blood in order to get Archie back. If Archie’s already dead, we’re going to destroy whomever or whatever Spilatro holds close to him, and then we’re going to have to kill him.”
She swallows, but nods, then nods a second time as though to reinforce her acceptance. “Remember that he brought us into this, he struck us first, and whatever we have to do is because of him. We didn’t ask for this but we’re damn sure going to end it. Messages are written in blood in this business.”
“A tiger is a tiger.”
“That’s right. And he should have left me, should have left us, sleeping in the jungle.”
I go back to that final file, the fourth hit, that had Spilatro working a tandem with the woman named Carla, the same woman Archie then used later for his personal contract. When professional killers work a tandem sweep, when they’re working together to accomplish a single hit, it usually indicates a certain closeness. The killers either came up together, or partnered for convenience purposes, or split the fees because they each had a specialty or strength that was necessary for the most effective hit. Rarely are they complete strangers. A degree of trust has to exist in order to execute an effective tandem.
Since all I have on Spilatro is his face, I’m going to need whatever information off of Carla I can get. I struck out with Kirschenbaum, so she’s going to have to do.
She won’t be on the lookout for me unless they’re still tight, which I doubt based on those last three files, the hits Spilatro worked alone, plus the one she worked solo. They went their separate ways, and maybe the reason behind it will help me build a strategy for taking on the son-of-a-bitch who came after me.
Finding Carla is going to require calling in a favor. Looking at the clock, I’m going to have to wake up a fence in Belgium.
A shell game of pre-paid phones and intermediaries and appointment times and coded messages finally lands me a secure connection with Doriot, a Brussels-based fence I’ve crossed paths with a couple of times in Europe. Once when I went to his office so he could evaluate me, and a second time when I reached him in a prison in Lantin, where he thought he was safely hidden.
“Hello, Columbus. I heard you were dead, so this is a surprise.” His thick French accent sounds even rougher over the phone line.
“Still breathing.”
“Yes, I can hear that now.”
“And you’re out of jail.”
“I couldn’t afford to stay in.”
“And how’s Brueggemann?”
“Unemployed, I’m afraid.”
Brueggemann was a German heavy who helped me find Doriot in that Lantin jail, against his will. I think I exposed his weakness as an employee.
“So you would not be calling me for any reason I can understand unless you need something from me, yes? So how may I help you?”
Belgians tend to get right to the point, a national trait I admire.
“I need you to do something for me.”
“I see. What is that something?”
“I need you to locate a New York female hitter who goes by Carla. I need you to hire her for a dummy job. Tell her she has to meet the fence and give her a fake address on Warren Street in Tribeca. I’ll pick her up from there.”
“You going to put her down?”
“Nothing like that.”
“Who’s her contracting fence?”
“I’m guessing Kirschenbaum, but he’s dead so you’ll have to figure out how to contact her.”
“I see.”
This is the part where he realizes he has me over a barrel and will ask for something. Either money or a favor or to pull a job for him for free. But Doriot is full of surprises.
“Okay, Columbus, how can I contact you?”
I give him the number on a prepaid phone and tell him to text me there with a secure number and then I’ll
