It didn’t.
It didn’t turn over, though, either.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” came a voice from the backseat, “but after your freak-out in the mall, I didn’t want you gunning the engine and crashing us both into a light pole before we had a chance to talk.”
Purkhiser went for the door handle. Didn’t realize he’d put his seat belt on. Hendricks reached forward with his left hand and locked the door-and with his right, he grabbed the shoulder strap of Purkhiser’s seat belt and yanked. The lap belt tightened, pinning Purkhiser to his seat.
“Relax, Eric,” Hendricks said. “I’m not here to kill you.”
“I told you,” he said, thrashing against the seat belt like a trapped animal, “my name’s not Eric-it’s Eddie. Eddie Palomera. You’ve got the wrong guy.”
“No, I don’t-and the sooner you stop trying to bullshit me, the better this will go for the both of us. See, while I’m not here to kill you, there are others close behind who mean to-and they’re doubtless good at what they do. If you want me to, I’ll let you go right now and disappear from your life forever-just say the word. But understand that if you do, you’re on your own. I won’t be able to protect you.”
Purkhiser stopped struggling while he digested what Hendricks had said. His eyes met Hendricks’s through the Buick’s rearview. “You’re here to protect me?”
“That’s right.”
“Are you with WITSEC?”
“No,” Hendricks replied. “I’m not with WITSEC.”
Purkhiser laughed then, black and bitter as old coffee. “ ’Course not. I figured maybe they saw my picture in the paper and sent you to keep an eye on me, but I shoulda known those ass weasels don’t give a damn about me anymore.”
“You’re no longer in the program?”
“Nope. I told those fuckers to take a hike about a year back. Always keeping tabs. Checking up on me. Poking ’round my business. I couldn’t get at a dime of the dough I socked away-”
“Stole, you mean.”
“-with them looking over my shoulder all the time. So I dropped out. Told ’em I was fine. And I woulda been, too, if it wasn’t for that fucking picture. That is what brought you here, ain’t it?”
“Yeah,” Hendricks said. “That’s what brought me here. Honestly, Eric, what the fuck were you thinking letting them print it?”
Purkhiser shrugged. “I didn’t have a choice. The casino made me sign a bunch of shit that said I’d do whatever publicity they wanted or I wouldn’t get my goddamn winnings. So I figured what the hell-it’s just some tiny local rag. Probably nobody’d even see it.”
“I saw it. And I’m not the only one.”
“So if you ain’t with WITSEC, who the hell are you? All I know for sure’s your name ain’t Allard.”
“You don’t need to know who I am. All you need to know is who I work for.”
“Okay, then-who do you work for?”
“You, actually. Or, rather, I will, for the bargain-basement rate of a quarter million dollars.”
“A quarter million dollars.”
“That’s right.”
“Which gets me what, exactly?”
“You know those guys coming to kill you?”
“Yeah?”
“I kill them first.”
“Shit-you’re like some kind of hitman entrepreneur? Now I’ve fucking heard everything. But seriously, dude, don’t you think a quarter mil’s a little steep?”
“Hey, that’s your call to make. But I would’ve thought a guy with damn near thirty million of the Atlanta Outfit’s dollars in the bank would have no trouble forking over a paltry quarter mil to avoid his own grisly murder.”
“You’ve seen my car, dude, and the shithole I’ve been working in these past two years. Do I look like I got thirty mil to you?”
Purkhiser had a point. Hendricks told him so.
“Damn right. See, the Marshals Service took it personal when I kicked ’em to the curb. Guess once I did they figured out I wasn’t square with them when I told ’em I didn’t know shit ’bout all the money that went missing. Next thing I know, I got a federal prosecutor sniffing around, asking all kinds of questions about unreported income and wondering if maybe I had any back taxes needed filing.”
“Wow. Bad break.”
“You’re fucking telling me. I ain’t been near my stash since, for fear they’d bust my ass. I don’t have to tell you that if they locked me up, I’d be shanked within the week-and no pile of money’s worth that. I was gonna skip the country and wire my money to a new account once I was clear, but those assholes revoked my passport. So instead, I decided it was time to get some dough that I could actually use. Hence my trip to the casino.”
“A six mil payout goes a long way toward putting you back in the upper class,” Hendricks said. “Picture in the paper aside, that was quite a stroke of luck.”
“Luck? You think that shit was luck? Took me eight months to write a program that could get through the casino’s firewall and hack those slots. I earned every fucking dime of that money.”
“And now that you have it, you’ll have no trouble paying me.”
“Yeah, only that’s just it-I don’t have it yet. Maybe Vegas does it different, but a two-bit slot joint in KC don’t exactly hand over that kind of coin right on the spot. I gotta go back Thursday to pick it up.”
A puzzle-piece clicked into place, and suddenly, Hendricks saw the whole picture. The instructions in Lester’s decoded communiqué said to make the hit as public and messy as possible. “Let me guess,” he said, “big crowd, oversized novelty check-that sort of deal?”
“That’s right,” he said. “Not ideal for a guy on the lam, I know-but I figure nobody’s got better security than a casino, and once I get my money I can disappear for good.”
“Be careful what you wish for. I’m pretty sure that’s where they’re going to hit you.”
Purkhiser made a little whining noise in the back of his throat. “Why? What makes you so sure?”
“Their instructions were to make a show of it. Their goal is to make sure no one ever tries to burn them like you did again. What better way to make their point than to take you down in front of God and everyone during your supposed moment of triumph?”
Even in the dim light of the Skylark, Hendricks saw Purkhiser go pale. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.” Then he brightened. “But you said that you could stop ’em, right?”
“I said if you paid me, I could stop them.”
“Right, but if you stop ’em, I can get my money, and then I’ll have more than enough to pay you.”
Hendricks shook his head. “I don’t work that way. I get my money up front or no deal.”
“I dunno, dude-that sounds pretty fucking hinky to me. If you’re as good as you’re puttin’ on, why’s it matter if I pay you after?”
“Well, for one, there’s no guarantee you ever would, in which case I’d have to kill you-and that makes two jobs I don’t get paid for. And for two, an attempt on your life is going to attract all kinds of attention from the authorities, which will help keep you safe from subsequent attacks if you hire me to do my thing, but it also makes any subsequent transfer of funds a whole lot riskier than it would have been beforehand. But all of that pales in comparison to the fact that I don’t kill without good reason. No money, no reason. So take it or leave it, but my offer’s nonnego
tiable.”
“Everything’s negotiable, dude.”
“Not this.”
“So, what, then?” Purkhiser said. “You’re just gonna let me die?”