“Yes?”
“I’m a wealthy man. I can pay you to protect me. How much would you charge?”
“Depends on what you want. Do I just have to keep you alive, or would I have to kill Connor Payne?”
“You…could kill him?”
“I could. But I doubt I’ll have to.”
“Why not?”
“If he knows I’m guarding you, he won’t come within ten miles of us.”
“If that’s true, I shouldn’t have to pay you very much,” Lucky said.
“That’s a rather odd way to look at it.”
“I’ll pay you twenty grand a week. How does that sound?”
“Paltry.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“A premium hooker would cost you thirty. And offer no protection against Connor Payne.”
“I don’t need a hooker.”
“You might, if you’re right about Phyllis being dead.”
Lucky sighed. “Look. You want the job or not?”
“Mr. Peters?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a liar, a cheat, and a cheapskate.”
“Based on?”
“You lied about fucking Phyllis. You cheated on your wife. And you don’t want to pay me a fair price to save your life.”
Lucky paused. When he spoke, he sounded dejected. “How’d you know about Phyllis?”
“Carmine told me.”
“Carmine Porrello?”
“You know any other Carmines?”
“He said he didn’t know you! That sonofabitch charged me fifteen grand for Sal’s phone number! And Sal charged me ten for yours!”
“So you’ll pay twenty-five grand to get me on the phone, but only twenty a week to protect you? That hurts, Mr. Peters. If I have to seek therapy over this, who’s going to stop Connor Payne from killing you?”
“I can kill him myself.”
“Now that’s a bold statement.”
“There’s a device. I only need you as long as it takes to find it.”
“Interesting. Tell me more.”
“I can’t. Not over the phone. If you protect Gwen till I get back to Vegas, you and I can search Phyllis’s office together, and find this thing I’m looking for.”
“Gwen?”
“My wife. Her life could be in danger.”
“Why?”
“If Connor Payne thinks I have the device, he might go to my house looking for it.”
“Or for you.”
“Right.”
“But you don’t have it.”
“No. Phyllis has…had it.”
“Want me to check her office?”
“You can’t. The police are there. You can get me in there tonight, though, right?”
“If I come to Vegas,” Creed said.
Lucky said, “How did Carmine know about Phyllis?”
“Mr. Peters, you may be brilliant when it comes to bookmaking, but you don’t know shit about the people who are scheming to bring you down.”
“And you do?”
“What I don’t know I can figure out.”
“But you won’t help me.”
“Did I say that?”
“You said I was a liar, a cheat, and a cheapskate.”
“True. Nevertheless, I’m in.”
“You are?”
“I’m intrigued.”
“Why?”
“Connor Payne is a one-man army. I want to know how you plan to kill him.”
“I’ll tell you tonight, after I land. There’s a direct flight to Vegas, leaves at five, gets there nine twenty. I need you to go to my house, watch my wife till then.”
“Okay.”
“And bring her with you to the airport to meet my plane.”
“You need to let her know I’m coming.”
“Of course.”
“There’s one problem.”
“What?”
“The police are having a convention at your house.”
“How do you know?”
“Carmine told me.”
Lucky’s heart sinks. “You don’t think something’s happened to Gwen, do you?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“Why?”
“No ambulance.”
“Mr. Creed. Are you in fact in Las Vegas?”
“Let’s put it like this: I can be at your house in an hour.”
“And you’ll take the job?”
“If you agree to cooperate.”
“What would I have to do?”
“Tell me everything.”
“Everything?”
“That’s right.”
“About Connor Payne?”
“We can start with him and see where it takes us.”
“Fine. But I can’t divulge any details about my business.”
“Why not?”
“It could ruin me.”
“Let me put it this way. You can tell me what I want to know, or you can tell Connor Payne everything. And he won’t ask nicely.”
1.
29 Hours Earlier…
The chip in my head can be activated by tapping a four-digit code into a device that looks like a wrist watch. When the code is entered, the chip heats up and starts liquefying my brain. Do that to me, and you better have fresh batteries and type in the right code, because if you don’t, I’m going to come for you.
It’s not personal.
I know you’ve got a life, a loving spouse, two apple-cheeked kids, three dogs, four cats and five parakeets. Or maybe you live alone in a basement apartment with a single window that’s half dirt and half sky, and you dine nightly on canned cat food while fantasizing about large, hairy women in boxer shorts who could win the limbo contest if the people on either end would just raise the fucking bar!
Either way, you’ve got a life, and as far as I’m concerned, you deserve to live it without interference from me.
Until you press those buttons.
Do that, and your life belongs to me.
I’m Donovan Creed, former CIA assassin, sometime hit man for the mob. I currently head up a team of assassins who kill suspected terrorists for Uncle Sam. I can be your best friend or your worst nightmare.
But you should know I don’t have many friends.
I’m a tolerant, even-tempered guy who likes the same things you do: long walks on the beach at sunset, holding hands, romantic candlelit dinners featuring great food and premium Kentucky bourbon, making love under the stars with high-end call girls, torturing, maiming and killing bad guys…
I’m not a bully.
Random comment, I know, but God, I hate bullies.
I’ve been told I have a hero complex, which means I feel compelled to help those in need. Personally, I think the world would be a better place if more people get involved when bad things go down. But apparently the fact I feel compelled to help people, instead of choosing to help them—makes me something of a sociopath. Let’s say it this way: if you’re a bully—and that word covers a lot of ground with me—it won’t take long for you to see something no one wants to see:
The man I keep hid.
To prevent that from happening, don’t fuck with the U.S.A., and don’t fuck with me, or the people I care about.
Which brings me to the buzz I felt in my head a few hours ago. The one caused not by alcohol, but by someone attempting to activate the kill chip in my brain.
I’d been enjoying a lovely dinner with Miranda, a particularly attractive young lady of the evening. We were in New York City, had the whole night ahead of us. I didn’t cancel the date, because we’d been looking forward to it for weeks. In the end, we had a great time despite the fact someone was trying to kill me.
Here’s what I know about the kill chip: it was grafted to my brain more than a year ago by the government surgeon who heads the hospital at Sensory Resources, a secret facility in north-west Virginia, where I have an office and a jail cell I sleep in from time to time. By choice. Doc Howard implanted the chip while I was in a coma, under his care. Unfortunately, it can’t be removed without rendering me brain dead. When I found out what he’d done, guess what I did about it?
Nothing.
Crazy, right? But as it turned out, Doc had been following orders from my boss, Darwin, who wanted the means to snuff me at will. By telling me about the chip, Doc Howard did me a favor, though he charged me a hundred million dollars. He gave me a controller, the code, and showed me how to change it. As a plus, he explained that if Darwin ever tried to kill me, I’d feel a buzzing in my head.