John Crow shook his head slowly. “You beat me fair and square. I’m a man of my word.”
“Then I reiterate my earlier offer. Go back to Miami and forget about me. Forget about kidnap for ransom. Do that and this ends here between us.”
He was Nyabinghi. In his belief system “Respect” held sway.
He nodded once.
I spoke with Kate, the mother of Stephan Pilarcik, on my cell phone while enjoying a cup of Jolie’s freshly brewed coffee, and she confirmed my suspicions about who had set John Crow on my trail.
Having established the facts, I switched the direction of our conversation and asked after the welfare of her son.
“He’s doing well now. His father arranged for a top specialist to do the surgery, and his hand is on the mend. I dread to think what would have been the outcome if you hadn’t intervened on our behalf, Joe.”
“How’s Wendy doing?”
“She’s a good girl.”
If Wendy hadn’t been alongside him, I doubted that Stephan would have survived his ordeal. On the face of it she was indeed a good girl, and very brave with it. From previous conversations with Wendy I was certain that she wouldn’t talk about what had occurred down in Jamaica. Unlike Stephan Pilarcik, she didn’t have anyone at home to worry about her when she’d gone missing. That was if you discounted her uncle Chuck. I’d always wondered — when the Pilarciks had received warnings not to involve the police — how a two-bit private eye the likes of Charles White had gotten involved in mediating the ransom.
John Crow told me the man who’d described my tattoo had not run away. Well, actually he had.
Charles White had taken the five hundred grand he was supposed to hand over for the safe return of Stephan and his niece, and had pulled in me and the guys on the safe bet that he could gain the best of both worlds by the safe return of the kids. Bastard had gambled with their lives, all of our lives, and if everything had played out the way he’d planned, either John Crow or I would have been dead and that would have been the end of the trail back to him. Kate Pilarcik had just confirmed it to me: Charles had gone to her and her husband claiming to have received a telephone call from a gang holding both their kids. He’d claimed he had experience in dealing as a mediator in similar instances when he’d been with the FBI, and that they should follow instructions to the letter if they ever hoped to get Stephan and Wendy home alive. The son of a bitch had even been the one to report that the kidnappers were demanding further money after the initial ransom demand was paid — even though he had already kept the half million dollars to himself. Bastard was greedy as well as a conniving piece of crap, and probably hoped to screw the Pilarciks for even more loot. When they’d claimed they couldn’t get their hands on any more cash it was likely then he’d hatched the plot to get the kids out, probably through a show of faith so he could lean on them for extras later. That or he knew that, having fed the intel about the kids’ location to the kidnappers, it was only a matter of time until they figured they’d been played by his “get rich” scheme and would come looking for him.
Yeah, he’d set us all up.
After we’d got the kids away from the kidnappers, he’d been the one to feed back my name and description to the Miami arm of the operation, including the details of my tattoo so there was no mistake in identifying me, setting them on my trail so he could make a clean break for it while they were hunting me down. He’d skipped town without even telling his assistant where he was going. And to think we’d both worried that something untoward had happened to him. Charles White had used everyone involved.
John Crow understood that too, I’m sure, and I didn’t fear that he’d seek retribution again. Not from any of us, at any rate. He’d returned to Miami to nurse his busted arm, and to organize his search for Charles White.
I had no regrets over killing the Rude Boys down in Jamaica, or indeed the baldy who’d accompanied Crow, and who now inhabited an unmarked grave in the lot behind the building in which he’d died. However, I regretted that a boy should be maimed, and that his girlfriend should be a witless pawn of her uncle’s scheme, and for that reason I swore that Charles White would be made to pay. That was, if I could discover his whereabouts before the Albino Vulture did.
But that was a job for another day.
I said my good-byes and put away my phone.
I was sitting outside Jolie’s café with the sun on my face, sipping the best brew that money could buy, enjoying both. Jolie was standing with her arms folded as she leaned against her doorway. She had other customers but I could sense her scrutiny on me, and knew that she had guessed what had gone down with the Jamaicans, but I trusted her to be as discreet with her suspicions as when a dangerous man had tried to coax my whereabouts from her.
I was a good customer. I’d be back. She could count on it.
I looked at her, offered her a conspiratorial wink.
She winked back.
Respect.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MATT HILTON has worked in private security and for the Cumbria police department. As an expert in kempo jujitsu, he holds the rank of fourth dan, and founded and taught at the respected Bushidokan Dojo. He is the award-winning author of the internationally bestselling Joe Hunter series. Hilton is married and lives in England.