Nobody followed me. At least, nobody that I saw. They either weren’t there or they were very good. The complete opposite of Colin and his remain-visible-in-plain-sight style of surveillance.
Or maybe that had all been an act to make me drop my guard and Colin had never stopped following me, he’d just started doing it the right way.
Either way, I made it to my apartment and found it unmolested. Nothing ransacked, nothing out of place. I retrieved my Glock from the safe and stuck two extra magazines into the clip holders on my shoulder strap. I tucked the gun in its holster and locked the door behind me for what felt like the last time. I hoped I was wrong.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
At 9:57 p.m., I pulled into the empty parking lot and killed my engine. Thirty feet away, Ian sat on his motorcycle. The neon green paint job of the Kawasaki crotch rocket matched the stripes on the sleeves of his jacket. He had it idling when I pulled up—the exhaust was visible beneath the light where he was parked—but when I got out of the car, he shut it off and flicked open the kickstand.
I’d used this parking lot a handful of times earlier in my career before moving on to more secure locations. It was secluded, nestled in between four long-abandoned packaging and distribution facilities, at the end of a road that served as the sole artery for the industrial complex where it was located.
Ten feet past the entrance to the lot, the road dead-ended with a chain-link fence guarding what probably began as a pile of leftover construction dirt but was now a thriving ecosystem of weeds, broken glass, and used condoms. The fence had rusted to the point where the dead end sign, a browned, decayed version of its former bright-yellow self, hung by a thread, its final fall from grace imminent.
People long ago stopped giving a shit about the empty complex at the end of that road, which was what made it so attractive as a meeting site. The more experience I gained, however, and the more interviews I logged, the more I realized that while it might be ignored by most people, it wasn’t invisible to any of them. In fact, with its wide-open lot and still-functioning light poles, it was a voyeur’s dream.
The more candidates I met there, the more exposed I began to feel. Ian was the last interview I ever held in that spot. Nobody else I’d interacted with in the last two years knew about it. I was banking on that to keep us both safe.
Ian’s footfalls echoed in the empty night air, his feet heavy in his leather boots. I scanned our surroundings as I moved to meet him, but there wasn’t much to see. No cars had followed me. We were alone.
I searched the roofs of the buildings and the holes in the dirty windows, looking for a gleam of moonlight off a sniper’s scope, but nothing flashed. That should have calmed my nerves but it didn’t. I pulled the canvas duffel bag off my shoulder and ran my fingers through my hair, convinced there were more grays mixed in with the brown than when I rolled out of bed that morning. The temperature was close to freezing, but my palms were sweaty.
“Hey Rick,” Ian said when we met, halfway between our vehicles.
“Ian.”
“This definitely brings back memories,” he said, taking in the scenery.
“Sure does.”
He’d been wearing a Detroit Lions baseball cap the last time. Ten pounds lighter, lost in a heavy winter coat. Two nights earlier, he’d taken that coat off the customer in front of me in line at a liquor store. This was after he’d shot the store owner in the head and then put another between the eyes of the tough guy by the wine rack who’d seen one too many movies and thought he could be a hero using only a bottle of cheap merlot. Ian never hesitated with either shot. Hand was steady, eyes were cool. He had natural talent but no one to manage it. It didn’t take me long to track him down.
“You look like shit, man,” he said, snapping me back into the present.
“Got a lot on my mind.”
“I’d say.”
Was that concern in his eyes? Pity? Maybe a little disgust? Hard to tell.
“That my money?” he asked, pointing to the bag.
“Yup.” I slipped the strap off my shoulder and unzipped it. I’d taken out my clothes and other travel stuff back at the apartment. All that was inside now was one hundred and thirty stacks of hundred-dollar bills. I pulled the flaps open and held it out so he could see inside. He nodded. I zipped the bag back up and handed it over to him. “Did you call and tell them yet?”
“No,” he said. “I wanted to meet with you first, make sure you hadn’t changed your mind.”
“Not likely,” I said.
“First you break your own rule about avoiding jobs with law enforcement targets, now you’re paying me to back out. You ready to tell me what’s going on, or have I not earned that level of respect from you yet?” He set his eyes on mine, and I held his gaze.
“It has nothing to do with respect, Ian.”
“How many other candidates on your roster would have agreed to what you asked me to do?” he asked, slinging the bag over his shoulder. “Can you name even one?”
“No,” I said honestly.
“You helped me back when I had nothing. I always swore that if there was ever any way I could repay you for that, I’d do it. This is me making good on that promise. But this is a big fucking favor, man.”
“You still got paid, Ian.”
“Fuck the money!” he shouted, stabbing his finger at my face. “You know damn well it’s not about that. Word of this gets around—and it will—a lot more than just my career could be over. Don’t nobody wanna work with a guy who backs out of the big jobs. You’re good, Rick, but are you good enough to still book me quality gigs with that hanging around my neck?” He shook his head. “There’s better than a fifty-fifty chance I just reset my entire life by helping you out. Least you can do is tell me why.”
“Ian—” I started.
Then stopped.
Then held my hands up in frustration.
Then looked around, down at the ground, and back into his eyes again.
Then I took a deep breath. If we were going to continue working together—and I had every intention of making damage control for his career my top priority as soon as all of this was over—it was only fair that he knew the truth.
Then a bullet opened a hole just above his right eyebrow and blew out the back of his head.
I heard his brains hit the asphalt before I heard the gunshot. A wet, unsettling sound. Oatmeal being dropped on the kitchen floor. A thin line of blood snaked down the side of his nose from the hole above his eye, which was wide open, staring at nothing. He swayed on his feet for a moment before his knees gave out and he crumpled backward, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. It wasn’t until he landed in the pile of his own gray matter that I started to scream.
My legs felt unsteady so I began dancing on my feet to keep them active, spinning in half circles where I stood, looking for the shooter. After a few seconds, whoever was at the controls in my head flipped the logic switch to the “On” position and I realized twirling in the middle of an open parking lot next to a dead man wasn’t the best way to avoid getting shot. I fumbled in my pocket and pulled out my car keys.
Get the money, that same logical voice suggested.
