Stu waited inside the New England Imports warehouse. It was a large but innocuous structure—as he’d expected an organized crime figure’s building might be—with a corrugated blue metal roof, two big white garage doors, and a man-door. It sat at the dark end of the wharf on the New Bedford side of the bridge, wedged between similar dockside monoliths that were equally lifeless. Old fishing nets hung on the outside below the rusted metal NE IMPORTS sign, giving the building a neglected look. Like one of Katherine’s photos.
The single huge storage area was nearly empty—no bales of marijuana, chopped cars, or crates of tommy guns. Just a sloop nestled in a maintenance cradle, and boat parts stacked on shelves along the walls. Every sound echoed around the open space, giving it a ghostly feel. The building’s interior office was a small cubical built against the wall on one side. Thin partitions made up its other three walls, and it jutted out into the massive room like a perfectly square tumor. Stu crouched in its shadow.
He found he preferred crouching over sitting. It kept him alert, and he’d been doing it for more than an hour, motionless, and listening to the creaks and groans of the wood walls and metal roof. The unmistakable skitter of a rat caught his ear. Just one. In the rafters somewhere above. But it wasn’t his prey tonight. He kept his head cocked toward the exterior door. He’d hear it open. He’d also hear any human footsteps on the concrete and know the exact distance to the shoes that produced them as they approached. Stu closed his eyes and just listened. He was comfortable waiting, patient and calmer than he had any right to be.
The rasp and click of the bolt on the man-door alerted him. There was an effort to turn the knob slowly, quietly, but it didn’t matter. Stu heard it as clearly as if someone had knocked. He didn’t move, but simply opened his eyes, watching from the shadows and listening. The footsteps were coming. One pair.
Good.
He’d left a single torchiere lamp lit inside the office, on the other side of the thin wall. The remainder of the warehouse was dark. It would lend his visitor a false sense of security to approach in darkness, Stu thought, and the light in the office would draw him like a moth.
A shadow approached. Stu heard the footsteps and quick nervous breaths. Still, he didn’t move. Instead he watched from his hiding place as a human silhouette walked right past him and peeked into the open office.
In the darkness, Clay Buchanan didn’t see the wire loop that encircled the upper portion of the door. As Stu had estimated, his partner was just over six feet tall, and his head fit neatly through it. Stu raised the old wooden oar he’d found leaning against the wall and slapped it against the concrete with an impressive bang. Clay leaped forward like a spooked rabbit, and the snare tightened around his neck.
The wire line on the back of the snare was twisted over the doorframe with just enough slack that Clay could turn in place but couldn’t take more than one step in any direction. He spun and yanked, jamming one finger up between his neck and the wire, but he was unable to pry it loose.
Stu stepped from the shadows.
“Don’t struggle. It’ll just get tighter. And be careful not to lose your footing or you’ll hang yourself.”
Clay turned and stared. It took a moment before he could speak. “Stu?” He wheezed.
“Hi.” Stu pushed past him and walked behind the desk, where he sat on the chair. “Having a bad week?”
“What the hell’s going on?” Clay’s throat was constricted so that he sounded a bit like he’d inhaled helium.
“I thought it was obvious. I’m back from my adventure.”
Stu could see Clay’s mind churning. An animal in a trap is still dangerous, he reminded himself.
“Thank God, it’s you. I thought I was dead.”
“Funny, that’s what everyone keeps saying about me.”
“I don’t know what you think, buddy,” Clay said, “but I can help you figure it out.”
“I think you had an idiot pilot leave me out in the wilderness to die so you could collect the full Molson settlement. And I think you’re laundering money for midlevel organized crime figures.”
Clay had to think for a moment. But his response was still impressively quick. “No. It was them, not me,” he said. “I had no idea they were going to leave you out there. My God.”
“Oh? You didn’t know Dugan was a crook when you brought him to the firm? I don’t find that credible.”
Clay licked his lips. “They had their hooks in me way back when we were prosecutors. I was drinking, spending, gambling. I owed them.”
If you live among predators for long, they will eventually eat you.
Clay continued talking, fast and high-pitched. “They had dirt on me, man, even then. It killed my career.”
It was Stu’s turn to think. “You gave their crew low bail and plea bargains when you were a DA, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Jeezus. And Malloy figured it out and asked you to quit voluntarily to avoid the scandal.”
“Dugan approached me again this year. He said he wanted to do business, legitimate business. I didn’t know they were still after you for Butz.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! What?”
“I figured it out later, after you were gone.”
“Talk. Now.”
“Butz is one of Dugan’s men. He knocked his wife around one night, and she threatened to go to the cops with everything she knew about their crew. That’s why they killed her. Not because of some craft store bill.”
Stu’s head spun. It made sense. The three-hundred-dollar financial motive had always been weak. Was I wrong all these years? He hadn’t ever seriously considered how the murderer felt about him. He’d just been doing his job, after all. He hadn’t even used the man’s first name, because Ray made Butz sound like someone’s wisecracking uncle at the barbeque grill, while calling him simply defendant during trial was an effective prosecutor technique to depersonalize him to the jury. Like a widget.
Accused men take that shit personally, Blake had said. And Stu had pursued Butz despite a historic lack of evidence. He groaned. It was a plausible explanation—he’d unwittingly pissed off a member of the local mob.
Clay gave him a sympathetic look. “Are you ready to cut me down?”
“It’s a simple matter of untwisting the wire.”
Clay looked up and, after deciphering the trap’s elementary setup, released himself. He stepped out of the office, and Stu rose to follow him.
Stu found himself standing face-to-face with his partner in the huge empty space of the warehouse. Dim light from the office lamp leaked out, casting an oblong halo around them, illuminating them like two boxers in a ring.
“You had me scared there, Stuey,” Clay said.
“I had to test you.”
“Did I pass?”
“So far.”
“Great. Now we can take care of this mess. Have you called the police yet?”
“Nope. Came to see you first.”
“Then who else knows you’re alive?”
“No one.” The lie came more easily than it had with Audry.
“Not Katherine?”
“Just you.”
“Thank God.” Clay nodded, then reached inside his new and very expensive-looking jacket.
Stu felt many emotions when his partner pulled out the .357. Strangely, disappointment was the foremost.
Clay leveled the gun at him. “I’m sorry, buddy.”
Stu wondered momentarily why people apologized before killing other human beings. Then Clay pulled the trigger.
The dry click echoed in the empty warehouse. Clay tried again, then stared at the gun as though it had magically transformed into a pigeon.
“It’s dangerous to keep a loaded gun in your desk drawer,” Stu said. “I did my homework, Clay. Did you? No? You never do.”
“Wait! I didn’t mean—”
“To kill me? I wasn’t sure before, but I am now, beyond a reasonable doubt. It was you. They might have gone along with it, maybe even welcomed it, but you put the hit on me. You initiated this.”
Clay brooded, then smirked. “So what are you gonna do, Stuey, go to the police? You’ve got no proof. This doesn’t come back to me. The only witness is dead.”
“I know. Perfect crime, eh? If we were in court, you’d be right, for a change. But we’re not.”
Stu reached inside his own tattered coat and removed the shiny new hatchet he’d purchased at the Great Beyond.
Clay’s dark eyes went wide. He dropped the empty gun with a heavy clunk and put his hands up. “Wait a minute. You can’t—”
“It looks like we’re at a bit of an impasse here. I don’t really have a choice. You called me a pussy in front of everyone. You tried to kill me. Then you took my woman. What kind of man would I be if I let those insults stand?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Did you stick your dick in my wife, or didn’t you?”
“I thought you were dead!”
“I’m sure you did.”
“This isn’t you, Stuart. You’re a rational, reasonable, law-abiding guy.”
“I’m not the same goddamned guy.”
“But you’re not a killer.”
“I killed a bear.”
“You did?”
“And a pilot.”
“Ivan—”
“I see you knew him.” Stu thumbed the blade on the hatchet. “Do you know how to field dress a deer? I do.”
“Don’t! They’ll catch you.”
“How? I’m dead. Besides, I have a feeling your new friends will handle the cleanup. They won’t leave a mess in their warehouse. I’m guessing they’ll take you for a little trip on the Iron Maiden.”
Clay’s eyes darkened again. “Fine. You try to kill me. But know this: you’re not man enough to take me without an unfair advantage.” He pointed at the hatchet.
Stu frowned. Even in the end, his manhood was being challenged. He could kill his rival, but it wasn’t enough. He needed to defeat him in a head-on fight. No tricks. No traps. No tools. Just claws and teeth. Like wolves. Stu turned and hurled the hatchet into a nearby post. Clay stared, his eyebrows arching.
And then Stu was on him.
They slammed together with their arms outstretched, snarling in the pale light of the torchiere lamp. Then they went to the ground, struggling, groping for throats and kneeing groins. Without any formal training, it was grunting, sweaty work. Clay gouged one of Stu’s eyes so that he couldn’t see out of it, and Stu bent Clay’s little finger until it folded backward with a muffled snap.
It was also exhausting and, after wrestling desperately for minutes that seemed like hours, Stu began to sense Clay getting tired. Stu’s shovel-hardened shoulders flexed, and his sturdy hiking legs found leverage. He forced Clay back and, inexorably, began to impose his will, shoving his partner up against a post where he might be able to pound his head against the rough wood.
Then suddenly they separated.
It was a move born of desperation; Clay knew he was losing. He was out of shape. Soft. He kicked free and scrambled to his feet, pulling himself up on the post, where the hatchet hung waiting. Clay yanked it free and raised it over his head, his pinky dangling at a grotesque angle.
Stu glanced about, but the only thing within reach was the unloaded pistol. He scooped it up and held it out like a cross to ward off evil. Unfortunately, he’d made certain it was unloaded; he’d even poured several layers of super glue over the firing pin to help ensure it would be useless to Clay. He hadn’t considered that he might have to use it himself. He turned the piece over in his hand, his heart still hammering in his chest from the battle he’d finally faced head-on, and lost.
Hammering …
Clay coughed up a laugh. “This is classic,” he said, panting. “We’re lawyers. We’re hired guns. But you’re out of bullets, buddy. You’re shootin’ blanks. You’re an empty gun, Stu. And I’ve had you pegged since—”
The .357 struck Clay in the side of the head so hard that he rocked backward and had to pinwheel his arms in the air for balance. Stu grabbed him by the shirt and broke his nose with the butt of the pistol on his next blow.
The hatchet came down, but Clay was unsteady and Stu ducked inside the swing, twisting so that the blade struck him behind the shoulder instead of in the head. He felt it bite and carve a chunk of his flesh from his scapula, but the gambit had been worth the price. Clay’s wild attack brought him close and exposed his throat. Stu didn’t hesitate; he clamped his teeth onto Clay’s neck, crushing his windpipe and tearing his flesh, bathing both their chests in blood.
Stu clung to his partner, pinning his arms with a bear hug to prevent further hatchet mischief while Clay fought for air. His own injured shoulder screamed, but he’d known pain and survived it for months; he could damn well brave it for a few more seconds now.
There was an awkward silence between them as they stood in the bloody embrace. It felt odd hugging. Clay struggled to get loose, but Stu found he was the stronger animal. He felt Clay weakening. And then, finally, the struggle ceased. Stu held on for a moment longer to ensure it was over, then let Clay fall to the ground, limp, and stood over his carcass.