two

Duncan Crowley pulled the Sig Sauer’s trigger and Andre’s head snapped back, a blossom of bone, blood, and brain spewing out from the rear. The chains squeaked as his body slumped, and he looked at the Sig Sauer. A fine weapon. A pity he couldn’t keep it. He dropped it to the floor and got to work.

He first unlocked the chains to Andre and to Pierre, and from a storage locker in the far corner, took out two rubberized body bags. Working by himself took some effort, but in an hour he was done. The bodies of the Quebec biker gang members were bagged, with the chains and the Sig Sauers in each of the bags, along with the axe, which Duncan placed in next to the biker named Andre. The floor was stained with blood and fluids, but somebody else would clean it up.

He then stripped off his soiled paper trousers, jacket, and booties, and crumpled them into a Shaw’s Supermarket paper bag. The plastic gloves joined them, but only after he took a cigarette lighter and melted the palms and fingers so any trace evidence was permanently destroyed. That bag also went with one of the dead bikers. Overhead one of the fluorescent lights flickered again. He’d have to tell his older brother, Cameron, to get it fixed.

Speaking of Cameron, the outside door opened and his older brother came in. He had on the same rig he was wearing from before at the Flight Deck Bar & Grill: boots, jeans, and dungaree colors that announced W.C.M.C.: Washington County Motorcycle Club. But his long hair was now tied back in a neat ponytail and he nodded to his younger brother

“Fucking bloody mess,” his brother said, shutting the door behind him, glancing down at the stained concrete floor.

“Had to go medieval on their asses,” Duncan said. “I didn’t have time to take the usual interrogation route. I needed the second guy to answer questions in a hurry, and that he did.”

“Didn’t think the axe was too much?”

“Not at all,” Duncan said.

“You sure?”

“They threatened my family,” Duncan said.

“It was just business, bro. Not personal. You know that.”

“No, I don’t know that,” he said, walking over to a waist-high metal sink, where he washed his hands in the cold water. It felt good after being tucked in the rubber gloves.

Cameron said, “I know it’s your family, but—”

Duncan wiped his hands on rough brown paper towels. “Cam, m’boy, the time you stop boffing waitresses and lonely housewives, get married, and settle down, then I’ll listen to you when you talk about family. And not till then.”

He tossed the paper towel into an empty metal wastebasket, turned, and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Sorry. Uncalled for. A long day. You and Lenny did good, ambushing them after they left the pub. Nice to know ether still works for knocking out folks.”

Cameron said, “What do you want next?”

Duncan gestured to the two body bags. “Get them into their Lexus, take them up to … let’s see, what quarry would be good this time of year?”

“Walker Quarry, I’d guess.”

“Not Palmer? That’s closer. Less chance of something getting screwed up. Bored State Trooper pulling over a Lexus with Quebec license plates, that sort of thing.”

Cameron said, “Palmer’s getting kinda of crowded, bro. We had two dumps there last year, remember? The guys from Boston and their friends from Providence. We could try Palmer but I’d hate to have the tail end of the Lexus poking out and bobbing in the breeze this time tomorrow. Bird-watchers might find it. They’re pretty damn focused on working on their lifetime sighting list, but I think even the densest birder would notice a half-sunk Lexus sticking out of a flooded quarry.”

Duncan said, “Good call. You got the right guys to do it?”

“Yeah,” Cameron said. “Dickie Leighton and his cousin Tom.”

“You sure?” Duncan said. “I don’t want them taking the Lexus for a joy ride, or have them root around in the body bags, take out the pistols or wallets. Crap like that we don’t need. You understand?”

“Heard you twice the first time.”

“Glad you did. When they’re done cleaning in here, I want you to come in and I don’t care if you can eat off the floor, I want them to clean it again.”

“Take some time.”

“Time we got,” he said. “But half measures will put us in Concord, with long time on our shoulders.”

Cameron’s eyes narrowed and Duncan was angry with himself. Cameron was a good sort, a bit too quick with the fists and a lousy dresser, but boy, what an older brother. Cameron always had his back, except for a couple mistakes years ago, one of which sent Cameron to prison and another that had derailed Duncan’s first career choice. But still, he had to stop pushing the poor guy. Duncan cleared his throat. “Sorry again. Getting cranky today.”

Cameron smiled slightly. “What did you find out?”

He sighed, looked down at the body bags. He didn’t have regrets, didn’t have any deep philosophical debate over what he had just done. They had threatened his family, had insulted him, and before they even came into his place—one of the several pieces of property he owned in Washington County, the northernmost and emptiest county in New Hampshire—they had plans to put two rounds in the back of his head. He didn’t think his head was particularly better or handsomer than other heads, but it was his and he liked it. As it was, they were in the body bags and he wasn’t, and that was just fine.

“Some snoop up in Quebec found out about our shipment. Word went to a provincial cop and then to the Iron Steeds. From there, they decided to come down to get a piece of the action.”

Cameron gently nudged one body bag and then the other with a booted foot. “Iron Steeds took some heavy shit from the Hells Angels, back when they tried to take over their turf. So I’d give them a day before their organization realizes their two guys ain’t coming back. Add another day or two as they check hospitals or cops down here, see if their guys are hurt or in custody. When they come up empty, then they’re gonna come back at us with some heavy shit.”

Duncan said, “Chance we’ve got to take. Shipment’s coming in less than a week. Something that will set us up for life. If we’re lucky, by the time the Iron Steeds send down another, uh, negotiating team, delivery will be made and they’ll be out of luck.”

“Hell of a chance.”

“Didn’t see any other choice.”

Cameron said, “Surrender, but I guess that’s not an option.”

“Nope.” He checked his watch and said, “Damn. Running late. Don’t want Karen chewing my butt when I get home.”

He walked outside and Cameron followed, closing the door. The concrete shed was set adjacent to a fake log cabin building that was Washington County Weapons & Surplus, another one of Duncan’s businesses. A sign dangling from outside the shed said it was Seasonal Deer Butchering: Best Prices Guaranteed. With the concrete floor, sinks, cleaning equipment, and drains inside, it was a good place to take care of challenging business without the fine State Police CSI guys getting all excited about finding blood trace evidence, if anything up here ever did get their interest.

But Duncan doubted that. The State Police were based in Concord, the state capitol, a very long way down south.

He walked to his maroon Chevrolet Colorado pickup truck with an extended cab, parked next to his brother’s own dark green Honda Pilot. It was still too cold in April for bikes, though he and his brother would take out their own Harleys soon enough. His right leg ached as he walked.

Duncan pulled out his keys and suddenly stopped. His brother almost bumped into him.

“What’s wrong?”

He stayed quiet, looking at the shed and the darkened windows of the gun store. There was nothing else here except a wide dirt and gravel lot, and beyond that, tall pine trees and a few oaks, and farther away, the near range of the White Mountains. He knew the back roads and trails and logging cuts through all of these woods and peaks, and he never tired of looking at the wooded mountains.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Duncan said. “Everything’s wrong. I just got the feeling we’ve gotten some people’s attention.”

“Sure we have,” Cameron said. “A fucking motorcycle gang from Quebec.”

“No, more than that.”

Cameron said, “Who, then? Local? County? State? Federal?”

“Don’t rightly know,” Duncan said. “But I want everything smooth tonight, okay? In fact, make sure Dickie and Tom clean the place a third time. Take out the drains, give ’em a good steam bath as well. You do that, all right?”

Cameron put his right hand on his younger brother’s shoulder. “You can count on me.”

“Damn, that’s the truest thing I’ve heard all day.”

The drive home took forty-five minutes, about thirty minutes longer than it should have. But Duncan took a couple of side roads, turned around in the dirt lot of the American Legion Hall outside of Turner, and sat and listened to the truck radio for a few minutes while parked in front of Jackson’s Old Town Deli and Service Station. He picked up a National Public Radio station from Vermont with an earnest discussion about the current recession, the longest and deepest in American history. Next to him on the truck’s leather seat was the Styrofoam container with his leftover salad. Karen was nagging—she would say gently reminding—about his weight again, and he wanted to show her that at least in this, he was listening to her.

He shifted the truck into drive, got back out on Route 117. Clear. Nobody following. Nothing in the air.

Time to go home.

Home was a simple country-style two-story structure up on the crest of a hill off Old Mill Road, with a wraparound farmer’s porch and attached two-car garage. On the front lawn were a bicycle belonging to his son Lewis and a tricycle belonging to his daughter Amy. Their home was stained dark brown and as he went up the driveway, he recalled the home of his first real boss. Ronnie Gibbons, down near Milan. Ronnie was the biggest weed dealer in this part of the state and had a sprawling McMansion with a big pool and a collection of ATVs, snowmobiles, and bass fishing boats on trailers scattered around the yard. Even one year out of high school, Duncan knew that Ronnie Gibbons was an idiot. His day job was working as a janitor at Turner Regional High School—where Duncan had attended—but he was suddenly rich because of his expertise in setting up light systems to grow weed in abandoned barns around the county and finding scores of willing customers, some who even moved the stuff to Montpelier, Manchester, and Portland.

So instead of putting his money in bank accounts or sticking it in a safe or even shoving it under a damn mattress, Ronnie dropped his weed money on a huge house, toys for him and his wife and in-laws and out-laws, bringing the whole Gibbons clan down to Aruba twice a year. Duncan thought it was like painting the roof of his house in bright orange and with black letters a story high, saying Drug Dealer Lives Here.

Duncan stayed with Ronnie until he knew his contacts, his operations, and where he bought his lighting and fertilizer supplies, and then left, saying his bum leg hurt too much to keep working for him. About six months later, the DEA, the State Police, and the county sheriff’s department descended onto Ronnie’s McMansion with SWAT teams, a helicopter, and enough police cruisers to outfit a medium-sized Mexican city, and that had been that.

Duncan parked in front of his two-car garage, hesitated. A light blue Toyota Camry sagging to one side with lots of rust was parked in the driveway, a car he didn’t recognize. His wife’s Toyota RAV4 was in the garage. He reached under his seat, where a Bianchi holster was secured, holding a Smith & Wesson Model 5906 semiautomatic. His hand was grasping the butt of the 9mm pistol and he relaxed when his wife Karen came out the front door. She was carrying a dish towel in her hands. That was the all-clear signal. If the dish towel was over her shoulder, that meant trouble.

Duncan stepped out, carrying the Styrofoam container. Karen smiled, came up to him, and he still felt a little flip in his belly as she approached. It was an old story but a good story, of the prettiest and most popular girl in high school and the star baseball player getting together after graduation. The story had been preplotted—they were both going to UNH, she on a scholarship set up by some New York financier, he on a baseball scholarship because of his skill at tossing change-ups and curve balls—but like lots of stories, theirs took a few detours along the way. His was first, when his knee and lower leg got nailed in a drunk driving accident, where he was the pissed-off passenger, trying to talk sense into a drunk older driver. A year later, her detour came when the New York financier got his picture on the cover of Newsweek and Time after being revealed as one of the biggest Ponzi schemers Wall Street had seen since Madoff.

So goodbye scholarship for Karen. She came back to Turner, and a year later, they were married.

Tonight she was dressed in white sneakers, tight jeans, and a buttoned yellow sweater showing off a hint of freckled cleavage, her long red hair about her shoulders. She kissed him on the lips and said, “Do me a favor?”

“I’m yours to command,” he said.

“Hah,” she said. “Keep on deluding yourself. Monica Ziff is in your office. She needs some help. I do her hair twice a month.”

“What kind of help?”

“She got caught up in that mess when Tyson Heating Oil went bankrupt. She pre-bought her winter’s supply and now she and her kids are going to be out in the cold later this year. Literally.”

“I thought the State AG’s office got a settlement from Tyson Oil for its customers.”

Karen wrinkled her nose. “They sure did. If you call getting a fifty-dollar voucher to use at a nonbankrupt oil company of your choice a settlement.”

He handed over his Styrofoam container. “Sweetie, you do know if that you keep this up, when we get to our final reward, Lewis and Amy are going to inherit a mortgage and your collection of Hummels.”

Another kiss on the lips. “I trust you more than that.” She opened up the container, frowned. “Honey, you should know better than this. A salad like this won’t last. The lettuce will get soggy and the dressing will make everything slimy.”

“Maybe I’ll have it for dessert,” he said.

She gave him an impish grin. “If you take care of Monica, maybe I’ll have you for dessert.”

Inside he greeted Lewis and Amy—ten and eight years old—who both said, “Hey, dad,” as they turned back to watching an old Jonny Quest cartoon on television, sitting on one of the couches. Behind them were sliding glass doors that led to the rear deck. Duncan had watched the same cartoons as a kid, and one day, a couple of months ago, was horrified to see that the cartoons had been heavily edited, taking out explosions, fist fights, and other acts of violence. What the hell was that about? Wasn’t anything sacred anymore? He decided then that if he could find them, he’d get his kids the unedited versions of the TV series as Christmas gifts.

As Karen stayed in the kitchen, he passed through the living room, down a hallway that had doors leading to the kids’ rooms and the master bedroom, then to a spare bedroom he had converted into an office once they had moved in. It was small but cozy, with built-in bookcases, two black metal filing cabinets with sturdy locks, a high-speed shredder that turned documents into dust, and a nice old wooden desk Karen had picked up for him at an estate sale some years back.

A woman sitting in front of his desk stood up. She was in her mid-fifties, thickset, wearing black stretch pants and a black sweatshirt with a Disney World logo on the front. Her brown hair had little auburn streaks at the ends, no doubt from Karen’s handiwork. She stuck out her hand and he gave it a quick shake.

“So happy you could see me, Mr. Crowley,” she said.

“Please call me Duncan,” he said, going around the desk and taking his own chair. “What can I help you with?”

She sat down heavily. “I won’t keep you, ’cause I know you’re busy and all. And I won’t take charity. Too damn stubborn for that.”

“All right,” he said, folding his hands together, “Go on.”

Monica sighed. “Things have been tight ever since I got laid off, when the paper mill down in Berlin closed. Fucking Iranians, excuse my French. They came into town, made lots of promises, got Federal loan guarantees and grants, and then they robbed the place blind and skipped town. Living someplace in the Caribbean, I hear, on some island that don’t have a treaty with the United States to extradite them. So me and about six hundred others are out of a job. Still, I get by, doing housework, some babysitting … but Tyson Oil, they had a good deal for the oil pre-buy late last year. I don’t have to tell you what happened next.”

“You and the other customers got a fifty-dollar voucher from the state of New Hampshire. I know it won’t go far.”

That made her tear up. “Won’t go far at all. So … here I am. It’s just me and my three girls, and last year, oil ran out early so I had to heat the place up by keeping the stove open. Before putting the girls to bed, I warmed up the sheets with a hair dryer, and made them share a bed. Anything to keep them from shivering. I swear, I’m not going to let them go through that this year.”

Duncan nodded, not wanting to press the woman, but he was getting hungry and his shoulders ached from his earlier work.

Monica said, “I’m keeping you, I’m sorry. I’ll wrap this up. Whatever you give me, whatever you can, I’ll make it worth your while.”

He unlocked the top desk drawer, pulled it out. “Don’t worry about it.”

She took a deep breath. “I do worry about it. So here’s what I’m offering. I love gardening, landscaping. I’ve already talked to your wife and she said I could help her with the flowerbeds and shrubbery … if you agree.”

Duncan tried not to grin. “With my wife negotiating on my behalf, how could I not agree?”

That earned him a smile from his visitor. He took out his ledger-style checkbook, opened it up. “All right. How much do you need?”

Her face struggled and he sensed the fight that must be going on within her overworked and stretched and proud soul. “Would … would five hundred dollars be all right?”

Duncan took a fountain pen in hand—a real fountain pen, not one of the knock-offs that had ink cartridges—and wrote her a check for one thousand dollars. In the memo section, he wrote “Advance for landscaping” and tore it out, blew on the ink, and passed it over. Monica took the check, brought a hand to her mouth, gasped. Tears trickling down her cheek, she said, “I owe you something big, Mr. … er, Duncan. I really do.”

“You might change your mind when you’re digging through the dirt this summer, yanking up weeds.”

“The hell I will change my mind.” She folded the check in half, slipped it into her purse. She took a deep breath. “One other thing, before I leave.”

“Oh?” Duncan asked, really feeling his shoulders tighten up, wondering how he could easily push her out of the house before his dinner got cold. “Go ahead, then.”

Monica snapped the purse shut, wiped at one eye and then the other. “Thing is, my girl, she babysits the kids next door. The woman there, she has a boyfriend, and my girl, she overhead him talking. His name is Gus Spooner. This Gus, he claims he works for you.”

Duncan said carefully, “Maybe. I’ve got a number of people working for me. I’m afraid I don’t know all of their names.”

Her eyes narrowed and got tight. “Now Duncan Crowley, I have a piece to say, and do me the favor of not interrupting, all right? I know you and I knew your parents, God bless ’em, before they died in that airplane accident. So I’ve got that on my side, all right?”

He nodded. She firmly went on. “I even watched you in high school, when you made those baseball records. I know about your scholarship, about how you hurt your leg, how you didn’t leave Turner. I know how you kept busy since you graduated. Lots of us do. I could rightly give a shit for what you do besides running your stores and your gun shop and other things. None of my business. Me and so many others are just so goddamn thankful that you’re here.” She patted the purse, as if for reassurance, and went on. “So I’ll wrap this up. My girl, she overhead Gus Spooner say he had a plan to make some real good money, real quick.”

He no longer cared dinner might get cold. “Did he say how he was going to get this good money, real quick?”

Her hands were tight about her purse. “Gus Spooner, way I found out, he works at one of your convenience stores. Somehow there was a screw-up in delivery and a case of cold medicine got dropped off. Instead of shipping it back, he kept it and now he’s going to use his Daddy’s hunting camp to cook meth.”

Duncan slowly leaned back in his chair. “Do you know where the hunting camp is?”

Monica said, “I checked it out. Before I came over here. Up on Town Road Twelve. You go up five miles, you’ll see a wooden sign on the left, nailed to a birch tree. Name there says Williams, the previous owner. Go up that side road, it’s right there. Dumpy piece of shit on concrete posts, the front porch is falling down.”

“I see,” Duncan said. He took out his wallet, passed over five twenty-dollar bills. “Thanks for the information. I appreciate it.”

She got up, the twenty-dollar bills in her hand. “Now I’m keeping you from your lovely bride, your sweet kids, and your dinner. I owe you more than you know. I hope what I told you about Gus Spooner is worth something.”

“It is,” he said. “Can I ask you a favor, Monica?”

She smiled, revealing a dimple on her left cheek. “Of course.”

“Have my wife come in when you pop out.”

He swiveled his chair around, looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows that gave him a great view of the back lawn, the thick green sprawl of pines and other evergreens, and the distant peaks. He never tired of the view, which was so fine, even though the glass was particularly thick. Such thickness impeded the view some, but also made it safe to sit here, without thinking of some disgruntled customer or potential rival sending a copper-jacketed .308 round through the back of his skull at about twenty-five hundred feet per second.

But the windows didn’t keep prying eyes away. There might be somebody out there with a spotting scope, keeping track of visitors, keeping an eye on what was going on here, the center of the Duncan Crowley empire. So what. They would see a woman come in, and a woman leave. As for electronic surveillance, he had the house swept once a week. With Karen here most of the time, and one of her sisters babysitting the kids, there was no way anyone could get in to set a bug.

Still, he had that nagging feeling. Even before Andre had confessed that Duncan’s upcoming shipment had reached someone’s attention, he had the sensation he was being watched, that he was under some sort of unexpected observation.

Damn.

That shipment was going to set him up well, so he could finally leave the day-to-day running of his businesses and give it up, take his wife on some trips, be able to go through life without looking over his shoulder all the time. Oh, they had squeezed in an occasional visit to Bermuda or South Beach in Miami, but long trips were out of the question. You go on a long trip and sometimes things go to hell, or knuckleheads who worked for you thought it was a good idea to start cooking up meth in the back woods.

Crystal meth. A great way to catch the attention of everyone from the DEA to the FBI to the State Police. His own activities were highly illegal, no doubt about that, but hardcore stuff like meth or Oxycontin would show up on law enforcement radar like a damn Boeing 747 coming onto approach at the single skinny runway at Milan airport.

So to have this new shipment come through unscathed was vital. It’d give him breathing room, a chance to start getting out of the business, do something fun with Karen and the kids.

Karen came in and put her strong hands on his shoulders. “You did good.”

“Thanks. Just don’t make it that much of a habit.”

She kissed the top of his head. “I’ve made you so many promises, sweetie, but you know I can’t keep that one. I’m always here to help our neighbors. But can I ask you another favor?”

“Go right ahead.”

“My uncle, Hubert Conan. He’s still bugging me about you. Being a stringer for the Union Leader, his stories are usually about the moose lottery or lost hunters. But he thinks a story about you, a successful businessman in a county that has twice the unemployment rate of the rest of the state, would be great.”

“I thought we’d agree we’d say no. You know publicity is something we don’t need.”

“I can’t say no to him, hon. He’s my Uncle Hubert. You’re going to have to do it.”

“Right, your Uncle Hubert who got fired from the New York Times for being a drunk.”

His wife kept her hands on his shoulders. “He was fired because he was drinking. Big difference.”

“Care to explain?”

“He got drunk one night in the newsroom and said he had voted Republican all his life, that he supported the Second Amendment, and thought Ronald Reagan was the greatest president of the twentieth century. Right there and then, he committed career suicide. They didn’t care he was a drunk. They cared that he was a right-wing knuckle-dragger.”

“So much for celebrating diversity,” Duncan said. “All right, I’ll try to take care of it. Mind telling me what’s for dinner, or is it a surprise?”

“Stuffed pork chops. But you get the smallest one.”

“Swell.”

She started kneading his shoulders and he sighed with pleasure. Her fingers worked his muscles and tendons expertly, and he felt himself relax and unwind. He’d have to talk to Cameron in a bit, set up a session to take care of Gus Spooner and his new business. Most of the time he admired entrepreneurship among his workers, but this wasn’t going to be one of those times.

“My, your shoulders are so very, very tight,” Karen said, again kissing the top of his head. “How was your day, hon?”

He recalled the two Quebecois bikers, one with dismembered limbs, the other with a 9mm round through his forehead, the blood and spatter that had to be cleaned up, the stench of death, the sharp smell of burnt gunpowder. Karen knew some of what he did, but not everything—a good arrangement.

Duncan reached up, patted her right hand. “Routine.”