Chapter 24:
Welcome Back,
Mr. Nightcrawler
LORENZO
June 18
I was certain we had lost them after we had crossed the border. A gentle breeze had calmed the raging temperature. The sun was setting over the desert, and if it hadn’t been such a terrible day, I would have thought it was beautiful. I cradled the rifle in my arms and scanned the horizon.
Part of me was secretly praying for cars to appear on the road. Carl had been my best friend.
The village was small, consisting of a few small compounds and some outlying buildings. The van was well hidden. I sat in the shade beneath an awning, gun in hand, black and gold scarab in a pouch I’d tied around my neck. In the distance dogs barked and children laughed.
It had been my fault. I should have seen it coming. I should have done something.
There was movement in the doorway behind me. “Your friend will live. He was struck twice, but the wounds were superficial. Given time to heal, he should have no permanent disability.”
“Thank you, doctor,” I replied, never taking my eyes off the horizon.
“I’m afraid I’m no Doctor,” the Qatari answered. “I failed from an American veterinary school.”
“Good enough.” I lifted the rubber-banded stack of money above my head. He took it. This particular establishment had a reputation within the criminal element of the region. “When can I move him?”
“I would not move him until morning. You may sleep in the guest room. I shall have my servants prepare it.” He turned to leave.
“We were never here,” I stated.
“But of course.”
Carl’s duffel bag was open on the bed. I found the manila folder with the mission details and dialed the Fat Man’s number on my untraceable cell phone.
I had checked on Reaper before retiring to the guest room. He had been asleep, and had looked terrible, even paler than normal, with bandages all over his skinny chest, and buried beneath IV bags. A heart monitor kept a steady pace. He would be fine, but the sight of what was left of my crew filled me with rage.
“Yes,” the Fat Man answered on the other end of the line.
“I want to talk to Eddie.”
There was a pause. “Mr. Lorenzo, Big Eddie does not speak with the help. I am his intermediary and—”
“Put him on or I toss the scarab in the ocean,” I stated calmly.
“Think of your family before you make any rash decisions.”
Part of my family had been shot in the throat this afternoon. I was not in the mood to play games. “Do it.”
There was a moment’s hesitation. “Please hold.”
I rummaged through Carl’s bag while I waited. We had worked together for so long that it still hadn’t sunk in that he was really gone, corpse burned to ashes on a Saudi dune. Death was always a possibility in this business, but you never really got used to it. I found another folder in the bag. It had Carlo Gomes written on it in black marker. It was the information about his family that the Fat Man had originally given us in Thailand.
I opened Carl’s folder. The man had never talked about his people. There were a handful of photographs. They were marked Island of Terceira. The pictures were all very old. Beneath each person’s photo had been handwritten the word deceased.
Carl had no family left. Eddie had never held leverage on him . . .
Carl had done it for us.
“Ah, Mr. Lorenzo. Good to hear from you.” The oily sound of Eddie’s voice uncorked a clot of rage in my soul.
“Why did you do it, Eddie? Why’d you try to kill us?” I hissed.
“Just business. I’m sorry about that. I saw the opportunity at the meeting. I realized what you had done. Brilliant move, I must say, but with the cameras around the cars disabled, I sent one of my men to accompany you. I thought I would tie up some loose ends.”
I was a loose end. He did not even sound defensive. That was just what our lives were worth to him.
“I was going to give it to you.”
“It was a calculated risk.”
“I should just destroy this thing and walk away,” I said, trying to keep my voice as neutral as possible.
“Do so and you will have a much shorter Christmas card list. The original deal is still in place.” He laughed. This was amusing him. “See, Lorenzo, you’re a pawn.”
“I guess that makes you the queen.”
“Fair enough. But you will bring me that phylactery, or I give the order and your loved ones get fed to the sharks. Listen to me carefully, chap. You do not have any idea what you have. The contents of that thing are more important than you can even imagine. I’ve strangled children for far less, and I sleep very well at night. You will give it to me or you will have—”
I cut him off. “Now you listen to me. You harm any of my relatives and I’ll give this thing back to the prince and tell him who hired me to steal it.”
Eddie let out a long breath. “You bloody fool.”
“No, you’re the fool. You screwed up. I know who you are now,” I snapped. “Mr. Montalban.”
“I suppose that was a mistake. You know what they say about hubris,” Eddie said slowly. Whatever stupid bit of arrogance had caused Eddie to reveal himself to me at the meeting was going to be his downfall. “Let’s be reasonable, Lorenzo.”
“Reason went out the window when your boy crawled out the trunk. You’d better pray that none of my nieces falls down and scrapes a knee, because I’ll assume you were behind it.” I seized the moment. I was tired of being pushed around, and now it was time to push back. “We trade. You get your bug right after you transfer twenty million dollars into my Swiss accounts. Then you walk the fuck away. You ever contact me again, I call the prince. If I die of anything other than old age, I’ll have somebody else contact the prince. You ever look at my family cross-eyed again, I call the prince. If one of my brothers gets prostate cancer, I’m going to hold you responsible.”
“And call the prince, yes, yes, I get it. . . . You know, Lorenzo, I never took you for a tattletale. But that’s why you were always my favorite. You’ll do anything to get the job done. Very well, I can deal. Fair enough.” I could tell that he didn’t think it was fair at all. Fair was not a concept a man like Big Eddie understood. Someway, somehow, he would find a way to kill me. There was no turning back from this point. For this to end, one of us had to die. “When can I have it?”
“I’ll be in touch.” I hung up.
I awoke with a start. It was dark, and I lay there for a second, heart pounding. The house was quiet, but I snatched up my rifle and went to the window anyway. There was no movement outside. No dogs barking. All clear.
But I stayed there, watching, waiting, too wired to return to bed. I was letting this get to me, letting it affect my judgment. There was a cough from next door. Reaper. That’s what had startled me awake. I put down my rifle and went to check on him. Surprisingly enough, he was awake too. Sitting up in bed and looking out the window, white bandages reflecting the moonlight.
“How you feeling?” I asked.
“Carl’s gone, man,” Reaper said as he wiped one hand under his nose. “Holy shit, I didn’t think Carl could die. He was too angry to die. It’s dumb, but like if he got shot, he’d just get more pissed off . . . Shit . . . That sounds stupid. He wasn’t the Hulk.”