Nobody Dies For Free Page 8

  ***

  Monroe filled the bathtub with hot soapy water and dumped the contents of the briefcase in. He used a broom handle to stir the soup and left it to soak for a few hours. He put the briefcase, which was probably also dusted with the poison, into a garbage bag and took it out to the building’s dumpster. Returning to his penthouse, he crawled into bed and left the waking world as soon as his head hit the pillow, for he had no pressing problems to keep him up.

  If he dreamed, he did not remember it when he woke up well past noon, feeling refreshed in mind and in body. He drained the tub, put the money, which he was confident was now safely clean, into a laundry sack, and left it to sit and dry. He rinsed the tub three times and then stepped in to shower.

  Dressed and nursing his coffee forty-five minutes later, he placed his cell phone on the table, turned on the speaker function, and called Mr. Nine.

  “Nice work last night,” said the senior spy. “Are you glad you accepted my offer, Monroe?”

  “I am,” Monroe said. “What are the cops saying about Carney’s death?”

  “They haven’t got a clue,” Mr. Nine answered. “Don’t worry yourself about it. There’s nothing to tie you to him on paper and I know you weren’t stupid enough to leave prints or obvious DNA. I wiped your file of any identifying info as soon as I hired you, so you’re not on record specifically enough for them to connect the dots. Anyway, why are you calling?”

  “Two reasons, sir,” Monroe said. “I have a present for you…and I have a big request.”

  “I’ll send somebody to pick up the computer,” Mr. Nine said.

  “How’d you know about that?” Monroe asked.

  “I saw the list the detectives made a few hours ago of Carney’s belongings at the hotel. A travelling hitman masquerading as an attorney would not leave home without ‘net access. It was quite obvious. Now what’s this request you want to run by me?”

  “Garrett Khan,” Monroe said, and he could not help speaking the name with a razor-edge to his voice. “I want your permission to find him and kill him.”

  “Ah shit!” Mr. Nine said. “Carney gave you some juicy tidbit to try to buy his life back, didn’t he? Let me guess: Garrett Khan ordered the hit on your wife.”

  “According to Carney, yes he did.”

  “And you believe him?”

  “I know a lie when I see one, sir,” Monroe said, “especially when a man’s life depends on the next words to come out of his mouth. What Carney said, he truly believed.”

  “Monroe,” the veteran intelligence chief said, “I’m not going to stop you if you decide to go off after Khan…and I might even support such an effort…but this is a much bigger fish than Simon Scythe or Baltasar al-Hamsi. You might even call him a shark. I’d hate to lose my new agent so soon. You know how powerful Khan is, you know how far his reach extends. How would you even begin such an operation?”

  “To be honest, sir,” Monroe said, “I haven’t a clue, at least not yet, but I’ll find a way. I have to.”

  “Then call me back when you figure that out. Don’t waste my time until then. You can expect that laptop to be picked up within two hours. The courier will use the word ‘sandpaper’ as part of a comment he makes when you open the door. If he doesn’t say that word, kill him.”

  Click.

  ***

  Boston, like any major American city, has its rough spots, sections where crime runs wild and some citizens fear to tread while others thrive. To such an area, Richard Monroe drove several days after the conclusion of the Simon Scythe affair. He had an idea.

  Men like Monroe, well-dressed and white, do not go to Archer’s Auto Body. When Monroe did walk in through the open bay doors, he stood there watching the six mechanics working on cars that were obviously being repainted, adjusted, and otherwise disguised away from their original and likely stolen forms. It took about twelve seconds for one of those mechanics to notice him, cry out, “Five-O!” and have the others all turn and surround the visitor menacingly.

  “We’re taking no new clients,” one of the men said, his hand just under his shirt as if to imply that he was armed. “And if you’re a cop, you better have a warrant.”

  “And some backup,” taunted another of them.

  Monroe showed no fright, no nervousness. He raised his hands to signal no ill intent, and spoke. “Relax, gentlemen. I’m just here to see Mr. Archer.”

  “Nobody gets to see the boss!” shouted the one who had suggested backup. He stepped closer to Monroe and said, “You got business with the boss, it goes through me first.”

  Monroe took a quick step forward, threw a fist into the man’s gut, and watched him double over. He whirled to face the others, who were closing in fast. He dodged one punch but was grabbed from behind by a big brute of a man. He was about to stomp down on his captor’s foot when a new voice broke through the melee.

  “What is all this fuckin’ noise? Randolph, get up off the floor. What’d you guys do, catch a white man where he don’t belong?”

  “Good afternoon, Spencer,” Monroe grunted as best he could with his ribs being squeezed.

  “Oh shit!” cried Spencer Archer, and then, “Let him go, you idiot! Let him go! You all get your asses back to work now!”

  Monroe was released and followed Spencer into a backroom office. They sat. The place was a mess, with paperwork scattered about and pornographic calendars hung in too many spots, as if Archer would have missed the previous years’ girls if he had replaced them, so he just kept adding.

  “Rick Monroe!” Spencer said, exuberantly now. He was a tall, slim black man in his early thirties with a thin moustache and a friendly face when he wanted to be nice. “How you been? It’s been too damn long! What can I do for you?”

  Monroe laughed. “It’s good to see you too, Spencer. I need a favor, if you still feel you owe me one.”

  He thought about how he had come to know Archer. The memory flashed through his mind and it was, in an odd sort of way, a happy reminiscence. Seven years earlier, on what had been his last visit to Boston before being stationed in Paris an attempt had been made to mug Monroe. Spencer Archer, then a low-level hoodlum, had caught Monroe on a side street, pulled a knife, and demanded cash. Monroe had feigned reaching for his wallet, made a quick move, and easily disarmed the thug. The result had been a complete turning of the tables. Archer had wound up begging for his life, so impressed by Monroe’s skill that he was sure he was about to die. Monroe, who at the time would not kill unless duty ordained it, had spared Archer with nothing worse than a sound thrashing and the two men had actually fallen into conversation there on that Boston night. Unexpectedly, Monroe had found Archer to be quite likable in a rascally way and had sent him on his way after regaling him with a few choice tales of life as an espionage agent. Archer, who had never been thwarted in such a way before, had promised Monroe a favor in return should he ever be in a position to grant one. Years had passed, and now Monroe had come to collect, and Archer was fine with that.

  “How illegal is it?” Spencer asked, laughing. “As you can see, I’ve got a nice shop set up here, even if it is a little on the shady side.”

  “It’s not illegal at all,” Monroe answered. “I just need some information on how things flow in Boston these days.”

  “Will I get caught up in your Big Brother business if I help you out?”

  “Not if I can help it, Spencer. I play my games a little differently now. It’s just me controlling the chessboard, just me with no little pawns.”

  “So who’s the opponent this time?”

  “Have you ever heard of Garrett Khan, Spencer?”

  Archer shook his head. Monroe was not surprised. Archer was far too street-level to know anything about Khan’s enterprises, but he would have bet the entire sum of money reclaimed from Franklin Carney’s hotel room that Archer’s auto theft ring was connected in some way, shape or form to something with Khan’s prints on it somewhere along the line.

  “Good,” Monr
oe said. “If you had heard of him, I’d be worried you were climbing the food chain too fast for your own good. Stay low where it’s fairly safe. But I bet you know somebody who has heard of him. Khan’s got things going on at almost every level of the kind of games criminals play. Let’s see if we can figure out a few Boston connections, okay, Spencer?”

  “Shoot,” Spencer said, opening a refrigerator behind his desk and tossing a beer to Monroe.

  Monroe opened the can with a snap and a fizz and tossed his first question at Spencer after taking a sip of the bitter brew.

  “I can see you fly under the radar here, but who really runs the auto trade in Boston? Who’s the man who runs more stolen cars than anybody else?”

  “A Mexican,” Spencer answered, “by the name of Caesar.”

  “All right,” Monroe nodded. “What about prostitution? I don’t mean the corner skanks either; I mean the high-class escorts, the imported goods: Asian, European, the ones who could have been models in a better world.”

  “There’s a construction king, guy called Benson. He runs a lot of building sites for the city and takes care of the politicians’ sexual hobbies too, provides girls for political parties and such, and they’re the kind of girls who usually stay for the after-parties and after those too.”

  “Spencer, old friend,” Monroe said, “You really are a fountain of good information. And now for the even bigger question: who’s top dog in Boston when it comes to drugs? Who runs more kilos than anybody else? Who keeps the supply chain moving? Who stocks the dealers and always gets his way when it comes to all things contraband?”

  “The ball bounces a lot on that court,” Spencer said. “There are two sides: Russian mob and a Columbian operation. They’ve been fighting each other for control for a couple years now and neither side ever seems to get the upper hand, almost like there’s a third party that keeps either of the others from winning the whole city, but I have no idea who that third player is. I get the impression it would be a bad idea to even start asking those questions anywhere you might be overheard.”

  “Interesting,” Monroe said, pausing to take another sip of beer.

  The office door opened at that moment and Spencer’s assistant, Randolph, recovered from Monroe’s gut-punch, stuck his head in.

  “Boss, some asshole left a brand new Lexus around the block. Want us to bring it in?”

  Monroe swiveled around in his chair, pulled his jacket back to show his Glock, and said, “Randolph, I’d much rather you stood watch over that car instead. Don’t you agree, Spencer?”

  “Shit,” Randolph said, and quickly shut the door.

  Spencer Archer laughed, loud and honest, smiling ear to ear.

  “Okay, Spencer,” Monroe said. “You’ve given me some names. Now I want to try to put the puzzle pieces together but I need a spot of glue to make everything stick. I want you to try to think of anyone who has dealings with all the big names in town, somebody who shows up a lot but doesn’t really seem to take orders from any particular boss. Is there anyone like that who comes to mind?”

  “Rick,” Spencer said, “you have to understand, I don’t really run in the same circles as those big shots. I mean I’ve been in the same room or the same club as some of them a few times and I’ve even met Caesar a couple times, but it’s a different world up there at the top.”

  “It’s all right, take your time. Try to think about it. I’ll take anything you can give me.”

  “There’s a woman!” Spencer said. “I’m not sure who she is, but now that I think about it I think I’ve seen her too many times for it to be coincidence.”

  “Who is she, Spencer,” Monroe asked, “somebody’s girlfriend or mistress, or one of Benson’s girls?”

  “No,” Spencer shook his head. “I don’t think so. She’s not banging anybody as far as I can tell, but she always seems to be hanging out on the edges of whatever’s going on with those guys. And she’s confident, you know, in the way she carries herself. Like nobody gets to walk all over her. I don’t know her name or what she actually does, but she’s connected somehow.”

  “Good, good,” Monroe said. “If I ran into her, how would I know her? Can you describe her?”

  “The hair, Rick, it’s all about the hair,” Spencer said. “She’s young, maybe thirty tops, with a killer body, but she’s got snow-white hair. Pure white, like really good coke, and it’s long and straight. Makes her look kind of weird, but in a very sexy way.”

  Monroe smiled his approval. Any hint was better than nothing, and if it was a woman it was even better. He knew ways to definitely use that to his advantage, assuming he could find her.

  The two men talked of trivial things as they finished their beers and Monroe left the garage feeling a bit of hope boiling in the back of his mind.

  Chapter 9: Sweet Little Enigma

  “Do you have news for me?” Mr. Nine asked.

  “I might have a lead,” Monroe said into the phone as he reclined in what had become his favorite chair, with the muted television glowing across from him. “I’m not sure yet, but I’m willing to look into any little clue that might lead me to whatever sliver of Garrett Khan’s business has trickled into Boston; I might as well start at home.”

  “What do you need from me?” Mr. Nine asked.

  “Permission to keep going, and information,” Monroe answered. “Can you tell me anything about a construction magnate named Cyril Benson? He’s based here in Boston, does work for the local government, and might be running a high-priced escort-prostitution ring in addition to his legitimate projects?”

  “It sounds like you know quite a lot already.”

  “I suppose so, sir, but I’d like a way to involve myself in Benson’s affairs, do a bit of snooping if I may.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Mr. Nine said, and he promptly hung up.

  Monroe sighed and turned the TV’s sound back on. Of all the major players in the Boston underworld that Spencer Archer had told him about, Benson seemed to Monroe to likely be the easiest one to investigate due to his being a public businessman. Monroe hoped Benson would lead him to the mysterious white-haired woman who seemed, at least in Archer’s opinion, to have connections to various criminal enterprises in Boston. Monroe’s idea was that a well-connected source would be able to furnish him with some sort of lead that would eventually set him on the path to finding Garrett Khan.

  He began to surf the six hundred mostly-useless channels. Mr. Nine, he knew, might call him back in ten minutes or it might take a week.

  ***

  The invitation arrived three days later. Mr. Nine had come through. Monroe opened the envelope, which itself was made of expensive paper, and took out the embossed card inside. Richard Monroe, Boston-based marketing consultant, had been (cordially even) invited to the grand opening gala of the Boston Crown Hotel, newly erected by the Benson Construction Firm and ready to open to the public. The affair was to be black tie and would be held in three days, beginning promptly at seven in the evening.

  Monroe smiled, sat down at his computer, and Googled the event. It was going to be a big one, he read. The mayor would be there, as well as various city councilmen and a slew of prominent businessmen. The party would be jointly hosted by the ownership of the hotel and the heads of the construction company, most notably Cyril Benson himself.

  That was it; Monroe had an entrance plan, a way to begin his hunt. He hoped he would not be wasting his time. He picked up the phone and ordered a new tuxedo. When the call was done and the suit had been guaranteed for delivery in forty-eight hours, with a bit extra charged for the rush tailoring, Monroe emailed his RSVP, confirming his intention to attend. Then he laughed. He loved the games that spies play. He felt an immeasurable gratitude toward Mr. Nine for putting him back in the field.

  ***

  The night of the event arrived. Monroe checked his looks in the mirror before leaving. He approved. Sharp haircut, smooth shave, new tux: the right combination for an evening when his skil
ls at charm might be needed. He drove to the brand new Boston Crown Hotel and let the valet take the Lexus. He had to leave the Glock behind too, hidden under the passenger seat of the car. He knew with its mixture of political and criminal personalities, the celebration would have tight security. One of Monroe’s unbreakable rules was that anything to be hidden in a car when a valet takes the vehicle must go under the passenger seat. The glove compartment is too obvious and many valets like to snoop there, and the driver’s seat is a bad idea as the valet often adjusts the seat’s positioning if he happens to be dramatically taller or shorter than the car’s owner.

  All that taken care of, Monroe straightened his jacket, took out his invitation, and entered through the front doors of the Boston Crown. The hotel was immense, the exterior architecture modern and clean while the interior had an updated version of art-deco as its guiding principle. Monroe took mental notes on those he passed on the way inside. Security men in uniforms checked the invitations, supervised by a thin man in a tuxedo who cheerfully greeted each guest after reading the name on the invitation after it had been passed to him by the guards. Monroe noted the telltale bulge under the guards’ jackets; they were certainly armed. Judging by the demeanors of the security men, as well as the slightly tired and over-caffeinated look in their eyes, Monroe decided they were most likely Boston cops raking in overtime.

  Those entering the main ballroom at the same time as Monroe were all well-dressed, the men in tuxes and the women in gowns that looked as if they had been purchased specifically for this night. It was an impressive display of the richest humanity that Boston had to offer. Monroe had, luckily, spent parts of the past two days doing his homework and learning who was who in Boston society. He had been overseas for so long that his knowledge of Massachusetts affairs had gone very out of date. But that had been corrected now and he could recognize the major political figures of the city, including the mayor and two previous holders of that office, as well as the wives of two of them and the mistress of the other. There were councilmen and criminals, high-ranking cops and influential crooks, the publishers of the biggest newspapers, several actors including an Oscar nominee, the entire board of directors of the Benson Construction Firm, and a host of beautiful women who Monroe guessed were employees of the more pleasure-centered of Cyril Benson’s two businesses.