After satisfying my hunger and caffeine habit, I’d spent the rest of the time cleaning and maintaining my gun. Loaded, and ready to go, I leaned forward in my seat and fed it into its carrying position at my lower back. Whalen and his buddies had reached the door up to his loft apartment by then, and I watched as the big man took out a key on a long chain and undid the locks. Partly I expected him to wave off his bodyguards, but it seemed the day’s business wasn’t yet at an end. That suited me fine. Under Whalen’s order one or both of the Hispanics was probably responsible for abducting and murdering Candice, and it was better that I dealt with all of them in one go than have to hunt them down individually. Whalen went inside first, followed by the two skinnies. The door was closed. By now it was late enough that the Thai restaurant had closed its doors, but there was most likely staff members still inside. I didn’t doubt that some of the immigrant workers lived on the premises. I’d no intention of placing any of them at risk, but neither did I want any witnesses to what I had in mind. I waited another half hour until all the lights went off and whoever was inside had locked down tight and retired for the night. I pulled on leather gloves. I then left my car and angled past the front of Whalen’s place and down a narrow alley that ran to the back of the restaurant.
Earlier I’d reconned the alley and knew what I’d find at the back.
I moved through the rear service yard, avoiding Dumpsters and a stack of piled crates by memory and approached the metal fire escape that would take me up to the back of the loft. My earlier scouting mission warned of creaking stairs, and now I went up them, avoiding any that would shriek under my weight and announce my approach. I made it to the top without raising any alarm. There I crouched, listening. There was no hint that any witness had seen me from the restaurant, and Whalen and his buddies were laughing too hard to notice the subtle noises of my ascent.
Having jimmied the locks already, I gently eased open the back door, and my ears were assaulted by drunken hilarity. Finished work for the night, the trio was celebrating with liquor and beer. As a background accompaniment to their laughter, I could detect the exaggerated moans and cheesy soundtrack of a skin flick playing on TV. It was like walking in on a college frat party.
The three of them had their backs to me. Whalen was sprawled out in an easy chair that had become misshapen beneath his weight. The two bodyguards — or whatever their role — were on a large couch. They had cans of Bud in hand, joints in their mouths. On a large plasma screen TV three oiled-up naked girls were writhing in mock ecstasy and being very inventive with a can of whipped cream and various items of fruit.
“Now that’s the kind of diet I want to go on!” Whalen whooped, to his friends’ lascivious agreement.
“Yeah. Talk about getting one of your essential five a day,” I said.
My joke didn’t elicit any laughter.
The two Hispanics dropped their cans of beer, and struggled to complete a further two tasks at the same time: they tried to get up and pull out their guns. They weren’t the best when it came to multitasking. By the time they’d struggled partway up from the sunken couch, and inserted their hands under their armpits, I had the barrel of my SIG jammed to the nape of Whalen’s neck.
“Sit down,” I snapped, “and show me your hands. Otherwise those girls are going to be covered in your boss’s brains.”
The skinnies weren’t as stupid as they looked. They showed empty palms.
Without losing contact with his head, I moved around Whalen so that I could face the three of them, and ended up with my SIG wedged under his nose. The rims of his lashless eyelids were puffy and red as Whalen squinted up at me.
“Who… who are you and what do you want?” he managed to say, though my gun barrel bumped his teeth a couple of times.
“I’m called Joe Hunter. Heard of me?”
Something moved in the recesses of his gaze and I knew that he had. The Hispanics shared a glance, and I recognized fear. Good enough, I thought. They knew who I was and what I was capable of. That should smooth the process of getting answers from them.
“Do you know why I’m here?” I asked.
Whalen shook his head slightly, fearful of making too big a movement that might jostle my trigger finger. “No,” he wheezed.
“Candice Berry,” I said.
“Wh… who…?” Whalen said.
I withdrew the gun from his mouth, brought it down on the side of his big skull. The clack of metal on bone was louder than the moans of the onscreen antics. “Don’t play me for an idiot,” I growled, and stepped away from him so that I could cover all three.
Whalen pressed a palm to his injured head. It began to swell instantly, and a trickle of blood streaked down his cheek and dripped from his chin. “Son of a bitch,” he groaned.
“Hurts, does it?” I asked. “Not as bad as a bullet to the back of the head.”
As I said it, I watched the Hispanics for a reaction and again I caught a nervous glance between them. The one to the far left squinted at his pal, shook his head very slightly.
“OK,” I went on, directing my question to the Hispanics. “Let’s get down to business, shall we? Which one of you murdered Candice?”
“Wasn’t me, man,” the one on the right said very quickly.
His friend shot him a look to curdle milk. “Wasn’t me, either,” he added lamely.
“What do you say, Whalen? Which of your buddies pulled the trigger?”
Whalen patted at the bleeding lump on his head. “I couldn’t say, man. I wasn’t there.”
“Just like you, isn’t it? You point the weapon but haven’t the balls to pull the trigger. So you get these dickless fools to do it for you.”
The man on the left was growing more nervous by the second. His tongue was darting in and out as he licked dry lips. He made a show of reaching for an ashtray, supposedly to douse his joint. I played stupid, as if I was fooled by the innocuous move. I even gave him further opportunity by holding Whalen under my gaze.
“Pointless denying it. We all know who killed Candice, and it doesn’t matter who was the triggerman. You were all in it together, and to me that makes you all equally responsible. What I don’t get is why any of you would take the fall for an asshole like Mick O’Neill.” I smirked at the way Whalen’s head came up at mention of his boss’s name. “Ah, I see I’ve guessed right,” I went on. “O’Neill had you kill the woman. For what? Because she’d witnessed what happened to William Murray?”
“I ain’t saying nothing, and neither are any of my guys,” Whalen said angrily. He cast a surreptitious glance at the Hispanic who was now creeping a hand toward his left ankle. “What you goin’ to do: shoot us? Better that what O’Neill will do to us if we squeal.”
“One thing I do know, Whalen. O’Neill won’t have you dropped from his roof. Fat bastard like you hitting the deck, he’ll have to have the foundations to his building rebuilt.”
“Fuck you,” Whalen snapped. He was actually braver than I’d initially taken him for. He tried to draw my fire by flicking out his hand and sending a palmful of his blood toward my face. His distraction would have worked if I hadn’t been expecting it. I stepped deeply to one side, and the blood sprayed over the TV screen. At the same time, I aimed my gun not at the fat man but at the Hispanic on the far left, who was coming up with a snub-nosed revolver in hand, the one which he’d snuck out of the holster on his ankle.
I fired before he did, and my round struck him in the throat, destroyed his trachea, and he fell back, gurgling on the blood flooding his throat.