“Fine.”
“And the second thing?” Ryan asked.
Merritt was seeing more of his ex’s letter. The last paragraph, in particular.
There are things about Jon that I know, that he does not want to come to light. This was, I’m sure, one of the reasons for his attempt to kill me. I had hoped to be able to relocate with my daughter before he was released, as I know our lives are still in danger. A release now would not give me the chance to finish important projects at work and move.
Please, honor the terms of the plea arrangement, and keep him in prison for the entire time of his sentence.
Respectfully,
Allison Parker
Just below her name were two thick black lines of redaction. The redactor, however, had done a fast job of it. Holding the letter up to the light, you could just make out a street address. It would be her new house, whose location she would have gone to great lengths to keep secret from him.
“The second thing...” Merritt was leaning closer yet. “Special services.”
Ryan had a parcel of pink meat halfway to his mouth. The fork returned to the plate, fully loaded.
In the shadowy world of these two men, the phrase didn’t mean elite military units, or concierge treatment of VIP guests in posh hotels. The “services” referred to all things involving for-hire murder — from tracking down the target, to turning the living into the dead, to disposing of the resulting work product in clever ways so that the body was never found. Which was, Jon Merritt knew very well, a task far more difficult than, at first blush, it seemed.
12
Wearing a yellow plastic apron, the man stood in the middle of his workshop.
He’d pulled the latex gloves off to read the text he’d just received. Now he slipped the phone away and eyed the end table.
It was a functional piece, no particular era, about two by two feet, thirty inches high, the beaded trim around the top being the only fillip.
“Dawndue...” came the sound from his thin lips, the fabricated word a habit, an affectation. He uttered it the way someone might whistle or hum. He was often unaware of doing this. One woman he dated had asked if he was a bird-watcher and the sound was that of a dove.
Moll Frain was a big man, with broad shoulders and a thick neck. He was, in effect, a column. A slim paintbrush looked silly in his blunt hands. His face was pocked but not extensively. Sometimes you couldn’t even see it. He was today in what he wore frequently: black dress slacks and a white shirt, both of which the smock protected from paint.
Moll was a native Ferringtonian, born here, the son of laborers in one of the ironworks, father on the line, mother in bookkeeping.
He was infinitely grateful that he’d found within him some talent that sent him on a different career path from that of his parents.
Eyeing the table again.
The temptation was to continue, enhance some more. And more after that. But he’d learned to resist. Once you were done, you were done, and — in your heart — you knew it.
The table was made of machine-cut pine, but now, in its transformed state, it was something more: the legs were white marble, streaked with veins of black. The top appeared to be copper aged to green.
Such was the magic of faux finishing. Turning something into what it was not. The large, airy workshop behind his modest house contained fifteen pieces, some drying, some dry. Others were in their dull mass-marketed state, awaiting his magic touch.
Moll’s favorite was a chair sitting near the wall. It was constructed of aluminum. He’d painted it to resemble wood. He liked the irony. This piece he would never sell.
He washed his brushes in turpentine — he used only righteous oil paints, not acrylic — and sealed the cans tight with a rubber mallet.
He hung the smock on a hook, then returned to his living room. He pulled on a suit jacket and knotted a deep blue tie around his neck. He looked at his watch. It was time to go.
Come on, man. Come on.
Glancing past the timepiece at his wrist, he examined his ruddy skin. It was worse. He was having an allergic reaction to something — his arms, neck, legs and chest were red and burned and itched. He hadn’t noticed the condition right away because he was an outdoorsman and had a late-season sunburn. But this was something different. It was spreading.
The decor of his bungalow was pale green, the same shade as the exterior siding. The color in here was more vibrant; the windows were curtained and no sun intruded. The outside clapboard was bleached pale. While he produced a piece of furniture or picture frame once a week or so, he had yet to paint the exterior of his dwelling.
The place felt empty today.
He was thinking, as he often had recently, that at this age, forty-three, he should settle down, be serious about it, get a woman.
That’s what his mother had written him in emails... while she still knew what a computer was.
And what writing was.
Settle down...
Well, he wasn’t that old. Not nowadays. He’d get it worked out.
“Dawndue,” came the quiet birdcall. He sprayed Benadryl on the rash on his left arm.
The doorbell rang.
“Open!”
Desmond Sawicki walked inside, slight and skinny as Moll was large and thick. Another difference between them: Moll always wore a suit, while his occasional partner preferred casual. Today, a tan windbreaker like a golfer might wear on a cool spring day, dark slacks. They both had abundant hair. Moll’s was brown, Desmond’s dirty blond and longish and slicked back with lotion. Hand cream, Moll believed. The thirty-eight-year-old might have been an aging surfer, if Ferrington had not been a thousand miles from the nearest wave.
“You alone?” Desmond asked, looking around.
“I am.”
Desmond seemed to want more but Moll did not accommodate.
“Where you been?” Moll asked. A gloss of irritation. “We’re late.”
“Had to finish something.”
Probably involved a woman. Desmond had this habit.
“Any food?” He walked into the kitchen.
“No time. The job. Got to move.”
“Coffee at least?”
“To go.”
Desmond returned, sipping brew as beige as his jacket. Moll smelled cigarette. He himself had never smoked but he’d heard it was very addictive.
“What is with that?” Desmond said, eyeing the man’s red skin. “It’s still there.”
“It will get looked at.” He didn’t want to talk about the crimson flesh either.
They walked out the door to Moll’s Ford Transit, as convenient a vehicle as Detroit had ever created.
As they climbed inside he noticed Desmond was frowning, thoughtful. He was muttering, “I don’t know.”
Was he troubled about today’s job?
Desmond was fine killing a meth cooker, an Oxy dealer, a whistleblower, a witness about to turn evidence — those were all in a day’s work. But Moll wasn’t sure if he had ever killed an innocent female. Was this going to be a problem? He had to find out. Right up front.
“So. What’s with the mope?” Moll asked.
“I don’t know,” the man repeated and gave a shrug. “Afterward, fried chicken? Or Chinese? I just can’t decide.”
Moll considered. “Barbecue. That new rib place on Castle Drive.”
Desmond brightened considerably. “Oh, yeah. Good call.”
13
“There.”
Colter Shaw nodded out the window of Nilsson’s burgundy Range Rover. He was indicating Coz-EE-Suites, a pleasant-enough motel on the outskirts of Ferrington.