‘You’re sure?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘And these employees,’ King said. ‘They’re just…what? In her crosshairs?’
Frankie sized King up, took a step toward him. ‘What’s it to you?’
King shrugged. ‘I just want to know what they did.’
‘She pays us not to care about why she wants these things done.’
‘Yeah. But you don’t think about it? Sounds like none of them deserve it.’
Frankie scoffed and went for something in his back pocket. King stiffened, ready for a brawl, but Frankie pulled out a small metal flask. He unscrewed the top and took a swig, the gel in his hair gleaming even in the lowlight. Then he put it back in his pocket.
‘That’s for when I start thinking about any of this,’ he said. ‘I’d say you find something similar. Just make sure it ain’t meth or dope. I’ve been down that road. Doesn’t lead anywhere good.’
King said, ‘Okay. We’ll do this right. And then we’ll drink. What’s our cut of seven-fifty?’
‘Half-half.’
Slater shook his head. ‘Bullshit. We’re doing all the work.’
Frankie said, ‘You’re telling me you’ll turn down $375k. That’s years and years of salary for one night’s work.’
‘We’re not saying no. We’re saying we need more.’
‘It’s $375,000 or nothing,’ Frankie said. ‘I’m the middleman. Heidi sends me the details. Without me you ain’t got shit. So you take it or leave it.’
King patted the air, trying to cool tensions. ‘We’ll take it.’
Slater mean-mugged him. It was an impressive performance. King almost felt slightly intimidated. And it gave him the perfect setup.
He wheeled to Slater. ‘What? You wanna go back to coaching classes for a couple bucks? Be my guest. I’ll take the money myself.’
Slater said, ‘Fine. Fine. I’m in.’
Now King had done Frankie a favour, and it gave him room to lay out his own terms. ‘Frankie, we’ll need everyone you’ve got.’
Frankie bristled. ‘I don’t do that. I never go all in. What if you fuck this up? Then I’ve got no one. I’ll have to start again from scratch. Groom some fresh meat. That takes time.’
Slater forced himself not to react. He kept the rage under the surface, channelled it for later.
King said, ‘You know we need it. This is the payday of a lifetime for you, too.’
Frankie sighed. ‘Okay. Fine. I’ll get everyone together. And I’ll come myself. Make sure we don’t have a repeat of the Choi job.’
Slater said, ‘How many you got?’
‘Three more. Two older guys and Danny.’
King shook his head. ‘Not Danny.’
‘He’s capable. I didn’t push it before but he can do this.’
King’s heart was in his throat. ‘Has he done this before?’
Frankie stared, furious. ‘None of your fucking business. You’re asking a whole lotta questions that aren’t any of your concern. You two are the lucky ones here. Remember that. Without me you’d still be looking for a gym that’s…how did you put it?…out of the spotlight.’
King thought about pushing it, weighed it up. Decided that it’d only show his hand if he was too forceful with the Danny issue. He was supposed to be a remorseless killer, so what would he care about some kid?
He said, ‘Fine. But if he drops the ball…’
‘He won’t.’
King didn’t know what that implied.
Frankie’s phone pinged with an incoming message. He grinned. ‘Ah-ha. Details.’
He crossed to them, showed them the phone as he opened the PDF attachment Heidi had sent through. It was an Excel spreadsheet, a small table with seven rows and three columns.
Seven rows for seven employees.
The first column had their full names.
The second column had their addresses.
The third column showed who was assigned to kill them.
Frankie’s name was attached to the first five names.
Someone named Petr had been assigned the final two.
Frankie said, ‘There you go. First five are for us. I’ll get Danny, Bobby, and Kit to meet us here within the hour.’
Slater said, ‘And the other two? She wants seven dead.’
‘That’s not up to me,’ Frankie said. ‘Would be nice to go for all seven, round it up to a cool million, but she dishes work out to Petr and his goons sometimes.’
‘Who are they?’
‘An independent crew. Russian gangsters or some such. But what I’ve gathered from Heidi is that Petr’s been fucking up lately. She hinted that she had his boys following some dissenting employee, Margaret or Mary or whatever, and that they dropped the ball. Sounds like she got away.’
‘Which is why she gave you five and Petr two instead of an even split?’
‘Exactly.’
Slater didn’t care about any of this. He spent the whole conversation with his eyes locked on the spreadsheet on the screen, burning the last two names and addresses into his memory. If he forgot a single word…
The stakes gnawed at him, quickening his pulse.
Too soon, Frankie whipped the phone away. ‘I gotta make calls. Stick around. Don’t go anywhere.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ King said.
When Frankie disappeared into a back room, Slater hustled to the other end of the warehouse and called Alexis.
In a hushed whisper, he recited the last two addresses and waited for her to write them down.
She said, ‘What’s happening?’
He kept his voice low. ‘The Russians are hitting both houses tonight. They’ll start at the first one and I imagine they’ll do them one at a time instead of splitting up their forces. They’ve already taken too many casualties and they don’t want any more. You need to be there to intercept them or two employees are going to die.’
A pause, then, ‘Okay.’
50
The rental house held a gross and uneasy sensation in the air.
Alexis could taste it.
Mary sat at the kitchen table on one of the rickety dining chairs, her knees tucked up to her chin, rocking back and forth. The motion made the chair legs groan, but she wouldn’t stop.
Alexis came out of the bedroom with her MP-443 Grach tucked into her waistband and sensed that fear as an aura, encompassing the whole house.
She knew it wouldn’t go well, but she said, ‘I need to go for a little
