The Professionals (12 page)

“We killed a mobster,” said Sawyer. “The police
and
the mafia are going to be looking for us.”

“What do the police know?” said Pender. “What does anyone know about us?”

“Maybe they saw the van,” said Mouse. “Worst-case scenario, they can trace the burners. Who cares?”

“I say we go to Florida,” said Pender. “We take a week or two off. Then we start hitting jobs again. We do it quiet, no guns, and we do it professional. We forget about what happened and we watch our backs. All right?”

“I’m in,” said Mouse. “Let’s do it.”

“Sawyer?”

Sawyer stared at him for a minute. Pender watched his friend try to work his head around it. “All right,” he said at last. “We keep going.”

Mouse caught Pender’s eye. “What about Marie?”

They all three shifted around to where Marie lay sleeping, her back
to them, her body rigid as a piece of steel rebar. Pender turned back to his friends. “I’ll talk to Marie,” he said.

Later that morning, Pender and Marie took the Impala back into Detroit. Neither of them spoke until Pender merged onto I-75 and pointed the car north toward the suburbs and the Super 8 motel. Then Pender glanced across at Marie. “How are you doing?” he said.

Marie looked at him. Her eyes were tired and swollen. “I can’t get that noise out of my head,” she said. “The gunshot. And then the—I don’t know. The body.”

Pender nodded. “I’ve been thinking about it, too.”

Marie stared out the window. “I didn’t ever think we’d end up like this. We killed a man, Pender. We ended his life.”

Pender said nothing for a mile or two, tried to pick out his words. Finally he sighed. “You didn’t think that was at all a possibility, Marie?”

Marie turned to face him. “What?”

“We’re kidnappers,” he said. “Criminals. You didn’t think there was a chance it would escalate?”

“I never would have done this if I thought it would escalate.” Her voice was deadly calm. “I never wanted to be a murderer.”

“None of us wanted it. But it happened. It’s over.”

“Did you know it would happen, Pender? Did you plan for this?”

“Of course not,” he said. “But I don’t think I had any illusions that what we were doing was right.”

“We weren’t killing people.”

“The guy was a mobster.”

“His wife was a mobster. Maybe. Allegedly. He had three kids. That’s a fact.”

Pender pulled over to the side of the highway and stopped the car on the shoulder. He stared across at her. “What do you want to do, Marie? He’s dead. Nothing I can say is going to make it better. He’s dead. We’re not. So what do you want to do?”

Marie said nothing.

“We can go to the police right now if that’s what you really want.”

Outside, cars sped past, horns blaring. “I don’t want to go to the police,” she said. “I don’t want to go to jail, Arthur.”

“Then what?” he said. “What do you want?”

She didn’t answer for a long moment. Then she sighed. “I want my life back,” she said. “I want to be normal again. I want a good job and a house and a dog and everything normal people are supposed to have. I want
normal
, Pender.”

“We’ll have normal,” he told her. “Another couple years, tops. Then we’ll be free. We’ll find a beach and—”

“That’s not normal, Pender. That’s a dream and it’s great, but it’s nowhere near normal.”

Pender stared out the front windshield. Cars blurred by around them. “How long have you felt this way?”

She paused. “A while. I don’t know.”

“That life doesn’t exist anymore.” He kept his eyes hidden. “That’s why we got into this business, Marie. That’s why
you
suggested it. Because normal wasn’t an option for us.”

“So what, we’re just stuck here?”

Pender glanced in the rearview. “I thought that was the point.” He waited a moment, and then he stomped on the gas and the car howled forward, picking up speed as they merged into traffic.

Marie stared out the window. “I just never thought I’d kill anyone.”

“I know. Me, neither.”

“Do you think we’ll be okay?”

“I think if we get out of Detroit, we’ll be fine,” he said.

She sat back in her seat. “That’s not what I meant.”

They drove the Impala into Troy and to the Super 8, where Marie packed up the gear as Pender waited outside, watching the parking lot for police or Beneteau’s goons. They left the room keys on the counter at the front desk and were gone within fifteen minutes.

Sawyer and Mouse were eating Hardee’s when they returned. The TV was turned to an action movie, volume extra-loud, and some Italian motherfuckers were shooting at some black motherfuckers as bystanders ducked for cover. Sawyer was eating a cheeseburger, wrapped up
in the flick. Guess he’s over it, Pender thought. Marie made a face and went to wait in the car.

They let the boys finish their meal and checked out. Then they drove across the interstate and into the airport. Pender glanced at the gang in the rearview. “If anyone’s looking for us, they’re looking for four,” he said. “We should split up here and meet in Miami.”

Sawyer and Mouse nodded. Marie paused. “I think I might go back to Seattle,” she said. “I need to think some things over.”

Pender looked at her. “Marie.”

“I’ll meet you guys in Florida. I just need some time.”

Pender watched Sawyer and Mouse swap looks in the rearview mirror, but he said nothing. They drove in silence. When they arrived at the terminal, Pender pulled the Impala into the drop-off lane.

“You guys grab tickets to Miami,” he said. “We’ll take back the car. I’ll catch the next flight down, and we’ll meet up on the beach. You guys have burners?”

“We got ’em.” Mouse opened the door. “See you in Florida, boss. See you whenever, Marie.” He got out of the car, and Sawyer followed and closed the door firm behind.

Marie watched them shoulder their luggage and disappear into the terminal. “They’re mad at me,” she said. “They think I’m ditching.”

Pender glanced at her. “Aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not ditching,” she said. “I told you I’d see you in Florida.”

Pender drove the car to the rental lot and parked. They got out and walked toward the terminal. “This is a mistake,” Pender told her. “This isn’t the time to be alone.”

Marie shook her head. “It’s just a couple of days. I’ll be fine.”

They walked into the terminal. Pender scoped out the crowd, feeling like he’d swallowed a time bomb. Be professional, he told himself. Get out of Detroit.

He didn’t make anyone in the concourse for cops or goons, so they walked to the ticket counter and he bought a ticket to Miami for the Kyle Miller alias and a ticket to Seattle for Ashley McAdams. Then they walked to the security checkpoint and into the terminal proper and
down to her gate, where they stood as the aircraft boarded and he took her hands in his. “I don’t think you should go,” he said.

“I know.” She gave him a forced smile. “I love you. I’ll see you again soon.”

He tried to kiss her, but she turned away. “I can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She squeezed his hands and walked. She didn’t look back.

T
wenty miles away from Detroit Metro Airport, where Marie McAllister’s Delta 757 was already taxiing for takeoff and Arthur Pender’s Continental 737 was in preboarding, D’Antonio was sitting in a Cadillac truck outside the Beneteau residence, waiting for a phone call as a plainclothes cop knocked on every door on the other side of the street.

A half hour earlier, Dmitri had called from the terminal with the news: The kidnappers were fleeing the city. Well, let them run. The stupid kids would have to flee the hemisphere before they’d be safe, and even then D’Antonio was certain he could dig up a Korean hit squad to put the problem to bed.

Miami wouldn’t be a problem. The organization had family down there, did plenty of business in Florida. Somebody in South Beach would know somebody who could take on the job. One punk-ass white boy wouldn’t be an issue at all.

Seattle was another story. D’Antonio didn’t know anyone in that part of the world. Meant he’d have to send goons to take care of it. Or kill the girl himself. Either way, it could get complicated. They’d pull the Miami kid’s card first, then deal with the girl in Seattle.

He’d left the house then, dialing a number with one hand as he
opened his umbrella with the other. “It’s D,” he said when his contact picked up. “I need a job done in Miami.”

P
aul Landry sat at his desk, shuffling through printouts with one hand and eating a Subway sandwich with the other. He’d had Garvey requisition any and all recent unsolved crimes featuring a red Ford van, and the kid had brought back an encyclopedia, effectively chaining the detective to his desk while his rookie partner went back out to Beneteau’s block and kept looking for witnesses.

It was like he told the kid, though. If the family didn’t want to talk, then they didn’t really have a case, unless the phantom Chevy came back loaded with good prints or the neighbor from across the way suddenly woke up and realized she’d had a good look at every one of the killers’ faces.

Or if I manage to make some gold out of all this straw here, Landry thought, as he stared down at the reports. Maybe someone used a red Ford van in some other contract killing and I can make a connection.

From the looks of things, multiple people had used multiple Ford vans for all sorts of criminal endeavors. Most of them were drug-related, though, and Landry had a hard time figuring how a yo from the Cass Corridor was going to wind up in Birmingham laying waste to a mob boss’s husband.

Still, there were a handful of cases that seemed like they might lead somewhere, and Landry set them aside. Something to work on until the kid comes back from the neighborhood, he thought. At least I’ll stay warm and dry.

The phone rang. A uniform with the Detroit PD, somewhere in the southwest. River Rouge. “Heard you guys were looking for vans.”

“Is it a Ford?”

“Used to be, anyway.”

Beautiful, Landry thought. “All right,” he sighed. “I’ll add it to the pile.”

W
indermere was at her desk when Stevens showed up at the FBI building the next day. She shook his hand when he arrived, then gestured to an empty cubicle across from her own. “Welcome to the big show,” she said. “There’s our command station.”

Stevens sat down, testing the chair. “It feels so glamorous.”

“It gets better.”

“Do I get my own trench coat?”

“If you behave yourself,” Windermere said, “you might even get a badge. Bring the stuff?”

Stevens opened his briefcase and produced a file folder. Inside was every scrap of evidence he’d managed to obtain thus far. He handed it to the Fed, and she paged through.

“Work many kidnappings in Miami?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “One or two. Drug-related. You?”

“Same. Minnesota ain’t exactly crime central.”

“I helped out on an abduction here a couple months back,” she said. “Daddy didn’t think mommy was doing a good enough job. Never saw a scheme like you’re talking, though.” Windermere put down the folder
and picked up some paperwork of her own. “Search warrant and plane tickets.”

Stevens shuddered. “Plane tickets.”

“The Windy City, Stevens. You don’t look thrilled.”

He forced a smile. “I’m fine,” he said. “Just not much of a flier.”

Windermere smiled back. “Stick with me and that’ll change, and fast. We’ve got Georgia and Maryland down the road if Chicago doesn’t work out.” She stood. “Ready to go find Carew?”

They were in Chicago within three torturous hours. Stevens spent the flight sipping ginger ale and staring at the back of the seat in front of him, while Windermere paged through the in-flight magazine, pausing now and then to chuckle at his predicament. “How can you be so calm?” Stevens asked her. “We’re thirty thousand feet above the earth right now. Doesn’t that freak you out?”

Windermere shook her head. “I grew up around planes, Stevens. My dad worked for Delta growing up.”

“He was a pilot?”

“Chief mechanic,” she said. “In Memphis. He worked on everything from DC-9s to those big 767s. Taught me all about how they fly. There’s nothing to be scared of. It’s just physics.”