Teddy Fay called the concierge and asked to have valet service bring around his car. He’d rented both the car and his hotel room on Billy Barnett’s credit card. He’d changed into his Billy Barnett guise to match the ID photo on his driver’s license.
He spotted the two men right away. They were small-time thugs, and they probably weren’t used to following anyone who was familiar with surveillance techniques, because they weren’t very good at it. One was pretending to be waiting for someone, and he oversold it by looking at his watch every fifteen seconds. The other was reading a newspaper. He wasn’t holding it upside down, but he might as well have been for all the attention he was paying to it. As if that weren’t bad enough, they gave each other the high sign when he walked out, and they climbed into a gold Oldsmobile way too flashy for the job. Teddy led them through a few turns just to make sure, but he needn’t have bothered. It was obvious who they were.
And what they wanted.
Teddy drove to a downtown mall and pulled into a parking garage. He drove up to level 5, which wasn’t crowded, and parked. He locked his car and headed for the elevator.
The gold Oldsmobile pulled up next to his car. Two men got out and followed him. They picked up the pace and closed the gap.
A gunshot stopped them in their tracks. It came from the direction of their car. They spun around, crouching and starting to reach for their guns.
There was no one there.
They turned back.
There was no one there, either.
The man they were following was gone.
They looked at each other, baffled.
Teddy Fay stepped up behind them and shoved guns in their backs.
“Let’s hold it right there,” Teddy said. “What you feel is the silencer of a gun. If you’re wondering why your partner doesn’t make a move, I have a gun on him, too. So, let’s put your hands on your heads and walk back to the golden Olds.”
Teddy marched them back to their car.
“All right, turn around slow.” Teddy waggled his gun on the big thug. “You, with your left hand, reach in your buddy’s jacket, take out his gun with two fingers, and put it on the ground. That’s right.” He motioned to the now-disarmed man. “Now you do the same to him. Good. Now step back.”
They did.
Teddy pointed to a black spot on the ground next to his car. “The shot you heard was a firecracker. Remarkably cheap and effective. Illegal, I’m afraid, but you can’t have everything.”
Teddy studied his assailants’ faces as he picked up their guns. They were clearly nothing special, just your run-of-the-mill thugs. The big one had a crew cut and his face was scarred, like a prizefighter who’d hung around a bit too long. The smaller one looked street-smart, with animal cunning.
“Nothing to be worried about,” Teddy said. “We’re just going to have a little talk. First of all, who’s in charge?”
The small thug’s eyes flicked toward his buddy.
Teddy shot the small thug in the face. He crumpled to the pavement.
“Funny,” Teddy said, “I would have thought it was him. So, you’re the brains of the outfit. If you want to survive this meeting, you’re going to tell me everything you know.”
The big thug gawked at him. His lip quivered.
“You got the car keys?”
“Yeah.”
“Pop the trunk.”
The thug took out his car keys, pushed a button, and zapped the trunk open.
Teddy gestured with his gun. “Put him in.”
The thug hefted his dead buddy to his feet, propped his stomach over the edge of the trunk, and flipped him in.
Teddy gestured with the gun. “You too.”
The thug looked alarmed. He clearly expected to be shot. He climbed in with a sense of resignation.
“Give me the keys.”
The thug handed them over.
Teddy slammed the trunk. He popped the trunk of his rental car and took the bolt cutters he’d requisitioned from the CIA out of his gear bag. He threw them on the floor of the thug’s car, hopped in, and drove down the exit ramps, level by level, and out of the garage.
One of Teddy’s favorite places, back when D.C. was his stomping grounds, was an abandoned boat ramp just fifteen miles out of town. Boat ramp was perhaps a flattering description for the overgrown dirt road sloping down to the river. Teddy had made use of it often in his stint with the CIA. He hoped it was still there.
It was. A simple turn off the highway, unmarked except for the two weathered wooden posts holding up the chain across the road. The chain itself was invisible in the overgrowth. Teddy stopped short of it and got out of the car. The chain was held in place with a heavy-duty padlock, and Teddy didn’t want to waste time on it with a live thug in his trunk. He took out the bolt cutters and snapped the chain.
Teddy drove over the chain, pulled in, maneuvered a U-turn, and backed up to the riverbank. He got out, popped the trunk.
The thug poked his head out, blinked in the sunlight, and found himself looking at a gun.
“Have a nice ride?” Teddy said. “Get out.”
The thug climbed out of the trunk.
“Okay, let’s you and me have a little talk. I’m going to ask you some questions. Each time you get one wrong, I’m going to shoot you somewhere. Sooner or later, I’ll hit something you need. Ready? Let’s begin. Who hired you?”
“I don’t know.”
Teddy shot him in the foot. “Wrong answer.”
The thug cried out and doubled up in pain.
“You might want to think about your answers a little. You don’t want to just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, because your default setting is to lie. As you can see, lying will do you no good. Let’s try again. Who hired you?”
“A guy in a bar.”
“What guy?”
“Guy I never seen before. He comes up to me in this bar I hang out in. Joey’s Place.”
“Not exactly your high-end establishment.”
“It’s a dive, but drinks are cheap. Guy said he was told to look me up.”
“Did he give you his name?”
“No.”
“What did he look like?”
“Egyptian, Arab, whatever. I can never tell those guys apart.”
“Did he have a hat? A beard? Long hair? How was he dressed?”
“No hat. No beard. Short hair. Suit and tie. Could have been a business executive. But he wasn’t American, you know what I mean?”
Teddy showed him the photo of the man with the SUV. “Is this the guy?”
The thug peered closely at the photo. “You know, it could be. He asked me if I wanted a job.”
“What was the job?”
“Take someone out.”
“Who?”
The thug grimaced. “Billy Barnett.”
Teddy nodded. “How were you supposed to find him?”
“Hotel reservations.”
“And airplane hangar rentals?”
“That’s right. He said they might not be under that name. But the plane was a Cessna. He gave me the tail numbers.”
“How do you contact this guy? Tell him it’s done?”
“He said don’t bother, he’ll know.”
“That’s kind of scary.”
“No kidding.”
“But you must have some way to reach him. Some number you could call.”
“No. He didn’t want to see me again.”
“How were you going to get paid?”
“He paid me in advance.”
“In cash?”
“Yeah.”
Teddy held out his hand. The thug made a face.
“You’re not going to earn it,” Teddy said. “Why should you have it? Hand it over.”
The thug pulled a wad of money out of his jacket pocket, reluctantly held it out.
Teddy stuck it in his pocket. “You paid your buddy yet?”
“No.”
“Then we don’t need him. Get him out of there.”
“You want me to dump him in the river?”
“You got a problem with that?”
The thug put his hands under his buddy’s armpits, lifted him up, and hefted his body out of the trunk. He wrestled him down to the river and flopped him in.
The dead man floated on his stomach. His feet caught in the reeds. The thug bent over, grabbed his ankles, freed the body, and gave it a push.
Teddy shot him in the head. The thug pitched into the water face-first. The two bodies floated away from shore.
Teddy slammed the trunk, got back in the car, and drove out the dirt road. As he turned onto the highway he made a mental note to call up and report the broken chain. Someone needed to get that fixed. After all, they wouldn’t want just any old riffraff using the boat ramp.