“Oh I think we can work something out,” he said with a wry grin.
“Great. We’ll take one of the Berettas, the HK P30 and a Glock 19 for me. Two boxes of ammo for each.”
“Going light, huh?”
“For now, at least.”
On the plane, Erica and I had talked about the best way to arm ourselves. While strapping up with Uzis and rocket launchers might have given us a greater sense of security, in practical terms it wasn’t necessary. Our primary objective was to protect Robert and my family while deterring Ghost and The Persian, not engaging in a full-blown firefight with them. If the latter was unavoidable, however, it was bound to happen quickly. And unless we planned to patrol the streets of my old neighborhood like extras from an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, one pistol each was the easiest way to remain prepared yet inconspicuous.
“Well, you know where to find me if you change your mind,” Frank said as he went back to the rusted out Caddy to fetch our orders.
If only changing my mind were an option, old friend.
We settled up in the trailer office. Enzo didn’t work weekends, so Frank had full run of the place. He offered us coffee but we declined. In the end, I paid $2,500 for all three pieces, which was the equivalent of a Buy Two, Get One Free sale. Frank always knew how to treat the people who kept his bread buttered. Besides, I’d made him enough money over the years to pay for the free gun fifty times over.
Handing over the cash canceled out all the warm homecoming feelings I’d been having since we landed, though. It made things real. We weren’t gearing up to go pop off at some paper targets or clay pigeons; these weapons were bought with the express purpose of killing people. Two of them, to be exact. Both of whom were far better at that particular skill than any of us.
Joey tucked the Beretta into his duffel bag with the same nonchalance as when he’d packed his socks before we left Brussels. Erica checked the sites on her HK in a manner that suggested it was but one step of a routine she had gone through many times before. I tucked the Glock in my waistband without checking anything. Placing the order was where my expertise ended. From here on out, I was a rookie climber on an Everest expedition. As I put the boxes of ammo in Joey’s bag, I realized Frank was talking to me but I hadn’t been paying attention.
“I’m sorry?” I said.
“I was just wondering if you had any work for me, now that you’re back.”
I smiled. “I’m not really back, Frank. Just a business trip. Besides, it looks like you’re doing okay.”
“Oh sure,” he said, waving a hand. “Can’t complain, especially at my age when you don’t need much to be happy. But you always found me the best jobs, Rick. Paid good and were exciting, too.”
“It’s what I do.”
“And you do it well.” We shook hands. I tried not to convey how badly I wanted what he intended as a compliment to not be true. But deep down, just like after I’d read about the double hit Ian did for Leon, a part of me couldn’t help swelling up a bit.
Everyone likes being recognized for a job well done, even if they hate the job itself. I thanked him again and the three of us started back toward our car. After a few steps, he called after me, so I stopped and turned.
“This business trip of yours,” he said “You’re just being overly cautious, right? Not like you to start mixing it up.” He gestured toward the new, clean Glock beneath my coat.
“You know me, never can be too careful.”
“I hope that’s all it is.”
I smiled. “See you around, Frank.” He waved and I turned back, my stomach suddenly very unhappy with the Marriott’s continental breakfast. In one final act of misguided hope, I pulled out my phone and opened the chat rooms where I communicated with Ghost and The Persian. After we landed in Scranton, as we taxied to the jetway, I tossed a Hail Mary, texting both of them individually, asking them to reach out. No context. No desperate plea. Nothing to indicate that I knew both I and my family had likely been added to their contracts. Just three simple words:
Can we talk?
Neither had responded. It had been foolish to even entertain the notion that they would. Still, those three unanswered words spoke volumes.
There would be no eleventh-hour reprieve. This was real now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Step One of our master plan was complete. We were armed, but the playing field was far from level. Yes, we knew they were coming so technically had the element of surprise, but how useful was that when the people you’re surprising were experts at not being seen? Despite the new gun pressed against the small of my back—my third in as many weeks—I wasn’t exactly brimming with confidence. Making matters worse was that Step Two involved us splitting up, and that called for a massive leap of faith on my part.
We stopped at an Enterprise in a small town just over the Jersey side of the bridge from Chester. Joey rented a Honda minivan that would be practically invisible on my old suburban street. In the parking lot, I shook both their hands and thanked them.
“We got them covered, Rick. Don’t you worry about it,” Joey said as he slid behind the wheel. I’d given him my old address for the GPS. It was a short, ten-minute ride away. I’d passed by this Enterprise branch a thousand times before, in fact. There was an ice cream parlor down the road the kids used to love. Many a summer night was spent at a table in their small outdoor patio, licking the sprinkles off a cone filled with soft-serve, watching the cars roll by on Route 45, listening to the crickets chirp in the field behind the parking lot.
“I know,” I said, but there must have been more of a tremor in my voice than I thought because he grabbed my arm before I could walk away.
“Hey,” he said, “I mean it. First time in my life since I left the military, I’m getting paid to do something positive. It feels good. Nobody’s gonna touch your family, Rick. Believe that. Just let those motherfuckers try.”
I gripped his hand and nodded but didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure I could. It was all hitting me in a big way.
I walked Erica around to the passenger side and pulled a picture from my wallet. Normally, it stayed in my hidden apartment safe next to my emergency cash and passports, but I’d taken it along with everything else for my trip to Mexico that wasn’t to be. Folded into fours, its edges rumpled and worn white, it showed Denise and our kids sitting on the front step. She had her arms around them, Ethan at two years old on the left and Mags at seven on the right. All three were smiling the smiles of people without a care in the world.
We’re content and we’re happy, those smiles said. We have all we need right here.
It was Mother’s Day. I had just surprised Denise with a gold necklace with her birthstone—a diamond—in the middle. The kids’ stones, amethyst and pearl, hugged it. The diamond was not small, and the necklace was legit 14k gold, not the cheap spray-painted silver stuff that filled her jewelry box from past Mother’s Days, birthdays, and Christmases. It was as much a gift for me as it was for her.
Not quite one year earlier, we had stayed up late into the night wondering how we would make our next mortgage payment. With the country mired in its worst recession in eighty years and nobody hiring at all, let alone paying someone to help them do it, my income had dwindled from a trickle to a slow, agonizing drip. Barely enough to keep the lights lit and food on the table.
But I’d fixed that. The necklace was my way of proving to her that I would keep the promise I’d made the day I proposed—when we were barely out of college and full of big dreams and bigger naïveté—to always take care of her. She’d questioned how we could afford such a gift. Our account was joint and, as far as she knew, had improved over the last few weeks but not enough to justify such luxuries. She didn’t know about the other account I’d opened. It was the first of many lies.
I’d told her not to worry about it and clipped the chain closed around her neck while she held up her mass of curly brown hair with one hand. The kids were there and beaming. I’d taken them to the store and let them pick out the setting and their own individual birthstones, telling them all along how surprised Mommy would be, how she would love it so much she would cry. With them there, I knew she wouldn’t press the issue any further, even though I’m sure she still had questions about where the money came from. Denise always worried about our finances. It was why I handled the bills and banking, which was how I was able to open additional bank accounts without her knowledge.
When she asked again that night as we lay in bed, both kids sound asleep, I gave her the same answer and silenced her follow up question with a long, deep kiss. The kiss turned into more and we never spoke of the necklace again. After so many lean months, it must have felt wonderful to wear tangible proof that things were finally turning around. I wanted a reminder of that feeling too, so I printed out the picture of her and the kids on the steps with the intention of putting it in a frame.
Ten days later I walked out my front door for the last time. I’d taken the picture and left behind my wedding ring. If I had my way, I wouldn’t be walking back in. I hadn’t earned that right.
