Jesus fucking Christ, he thought. It’s always something.
So, a cash infusion was certainly welcome. A satisfactory outcome on this job would cover the fridge and maybe even the dental work.
The target’s name was Glenn Ford. No shit, just like the actor from years ago, the one who played Superman’s adoptive dad, Pa Kent, in the first Christopher Reeve movie. Not that many people today even knew who Glenn Ford was. Anyway, this Glenn Ford guy was a witness in a murder trial that was about to get under way. There’d been a little war between rival biker gangs around New Haven, and this Ford guy was some poor schlub who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and saw Wilson “Banger” Smith, from gang number one, shoot Delbert “Snooker” Bundy, from gang number two, right in the head.
Happened out front of a KFC, in the parking lot. Ford had just picked up a bucket of chicken and a side of slaw and was sitting behind the wheel of his Nissan Pathfinder. The windows were tinted dark enough that Wilson had taken no notice of him, but when the police showed up, Ford, a civic-minded individual — the dumbass — told them everything he had seen, providing not only a detailed description of Wilson, but the license plate number from his getaway car, which happened to be his wife’s Toyota Prius, she being more environmentally conscious than your average biker’s spouse.
Anyway, the state’s entire case rested on the testimony of Mr. Glenn Ford, so Wilson, through some of his associates, had put in a call to Matt to take care of things for him. Ordinarily he might have asked one of his biker buddies to do it, but the police were watching all of them pretty closely.
There was ten grand in it for Matt, so he said, “Okay.” Shit, if he’d been offered three he’d have done it.
The police hadn’t exactly hidden Ford away, although they’d taken some precautions. The first was the aforementioned surveillance of Wilson’s associates, the ones the cops believed were the most likely to do him harm. But the cops had also suggested Ford get the heck out of New Haven until the trial was over.
Ford was a writer who didn’t have to clock in to some factory or office every day from nine to five, so he could pretty much do his job from anyplace. Easy for him, but harder for his wife, who worked in a chiropractor’s office. But she opted to take a break from work and the two of them went to live with her sister, who had a nanny’s apartment in her basement and, as luck would have it, no longer any need for a nanny.
Ford and his wife had been pretty circumspect about their new living arrangement, but the bikers had gotten a tip from someone — didn’t much matter to Matt who it might have been — and were able to supply Matt with an address.
Matt had driven up to Hartford a couple of times to scope out the situation, get a sense of Ford’s routine. He felt there was a lot riding on this one. Do the job right, maybe more work would be coming his way. The wife left the house around eight every morning to go for a run that usually took about an hour, which was more than enough time to slip inside and kill Ford, but there was always the risk she might come back early, and then Matt would have to do her, as well. Then there was the issue of Ford’s sister-in-law, who lived in another part of the house. This whole thing could go south in a hurry if he wasn’t careful.
Ford and the missus left the house together midmorning to go to a local coffee shop. Weather permitting, they’d grab a table outside and chat while they sipped lattes and dipped biscotti. Again, not terribly helpful.
But in the evening, Ford liked to take a solitary contemplative walk, probably figuring out what he would write the next day. Matt didn’t know a lot about writers, but he figured they had to do a lot of thinking. Ford’s walk took him through a wooded area of a nearby park. And on the other side of the woods was a road where Matt could park his car.
Perfect.
So on his third trip to Hartford, Matt was ready. He dressed himself as a jogger — sneakers, track pants, T-shirt, iPod strapped to his arm with a wire running up to buds tucked into his ears — and timed it so he was running down the path through the wooded area as Ford was strolling along in the other direction.
No one else on the path.
When they were about thirty feet apart, Matt pretended to stumble, as though he had tripped on a lace, and went down.
“Shit!” he said.
And as he’d expected, Ford closed the distance, knelt down, and asked, “You okay?”
Which was when Matt took a mini-can of mace and sprayed it into Ford’s face. Ford let out a yelp as the mist blinded him, but he didn’t make noise for long. Matt made a fist and drove it into the man’s temple hard enough to render him unconscious. Then all he had to do was drag him into the bushes and finish him off, which he accomplished by straddling Ford and holding one hand over the man’s mouth while pinching his nose shut with the other.
Matt didn’t know quite how to explain it, but he liked this part. Was fascinated by it.
He’d be the first to admit he didn’t spend a lot of time pondering the mysteries of the universe, but he was intrigued by that moment when a living thing stopped being a living thing, and the power one felt at making that moment happen.
He tried to think of the word for it. A rush. That was it. It was all over so quickly. He wished he could make the feeling last a little longer.
A vibration from his muted phone brought him out of his reverie.
When Matt looked at the phone — one of two he had on him — he was surprised to see the name that came up. Not just because of who it was, but because the person wasn’t using a burner phone, or blocking the caller ID. There was the name, right fucking there. How would this person even have his cell number? And then Matt remembered that a few years ago he hadn’t been quite as careful as he was now, didn’t always have a burner as a backup. He’d learned a lot since then.
Matt took the call.
“Hey,” he said.
“We need to talk.”
“About what?”
“You fucked up,” the caller said.
“What’re you talking about?”
“Six years ago. You messed—”
“Shut up. Hang up. I’ll text you a number. Call it. A woman will give you my other number, and then you call that number, and not from your own phone. Think you can do that?”
A pause at the other end. “Yeah, okay, okay, sorry, I got it.”
Matt ended the call and shook his head. He called up his wife’s number and wrote:
SOMEONE WILL CALL. GIVE THE NUMBER.
Matt got out his second phone. The burner. The one he would get rid of on the way home. He waited. And with each passing second, his anxiety grew. What the hell was this person talking about? Fucked up what? It had been six goddamn years, and—
The burner buzzed.
“What?” Matt said.
“Something went wrong on that job. Did you even do it? Did I pay you for nothing?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“She’s back.”
“Who’s back?”
“The one you were supposed to... you know, is back.”
Matt’s brow furrowed. “Back?”
“Brie. I’m talking about Brie. She’s been seen.”
“Bullshit.”