There was something moving on top of a fence post. I walked over for a closer look and saw that the little bastard had stuck a box turtle on top of the fence post. He’d centered it in such a way that the bottom of the turtle’s shell was perched on the post but its head, feet and tail dangled in the air on all sides. The turtle’s feet moved furiously in a futile effort to make contact with something solid. It was apparent the kid intended the turtle to die this way, either from thirst, exhaustion, or maybe he expected it to boil to death as the day wore on. The kid didn’t care, he thought it was hilarious. He kept grinning and pointed to the line of fence posts behind me, where I saw a dozen more turtles lined up as motionless as any group of sports trophies.
Callie said, “What did you do?”
That morning in Colorado after the big, strawberry blondhaired kid showed me his turtle graveyard, I took the silver dollar out of my pocket, the one I’d carried all these years, and flipped it in the air. It flew maybe twenty feet high before starting its descent. When the turtle killer looked up to catch my coin I punched him on the side of the head, exploding my fist into his jaw the way my grandfather had taught me, turning into the punch, putting everything I had into it. The bully and the silver dollar hit the ground at the same time. I rescued the live turtle, picked the dead ones off their perches, and left the big, strawberry-haired kid laying there, his legs twitching like a turtle on a fence post.
“Did he die?” Callie asked.
“From a skinny ten-year-old’s punch? No way. I hadn’t gone twenty yards when I heard the rocks whizzing past my ears. The son-of-a-bitch tried to kill me!”
“What did you do?”
“Ran like hell!”
Callie laughed.
“You put your life on the line for a turtle.”
I laughed. “I guess.”
“I think it’s noble.”
“Uh huh.”
“Donovan Creed, Ninja Turtle.”
The drill burst through the wall, leaving a second hole, about an inch from the first one. From the bag I got a hammer and chisel and started banging away. The chisel made short work of the area between the holes, and left an opening I could have gotten two fingers through.
I put my mouth to the new opening and said, “Alison, this is Donovan Creed. I know they told you I was dead, but I’m very much alive and I’m going to get you out of there. I’ve got a friend with me. Her name is Callie Carpenter, and she’s going to rescue you.”
“MMM…MMMM” Alison said.
“Save your strength,” I said through the opening.
Callie said, “How much longer?”
“Fifteen minutes, tops.”
“How’s that possible?”
“The wall is weakening,” I said.
I got the concrete saw and started cutting a vertical line from the center of the hole. When I’d made a two-foot cut I turned to Callie and said, “See? We’re practically in.”
“That was more than a half hour,” Callie said.
I gave her a look that said I was doing all the work, and followed it up by asking, “That chair comfy enough for you?”
“Depends how long I’ve got to sit here.”
“Five minutes, tops.”
Then I got out the sledge hammer.
Chapter 56
Forty minutes later I gave Callie the concrete saw and directed her to start a horizontal cut from both sides of the twelve-inch opening I’d managed to create. Between the drinks, the big dinner and the physical labor, I was beat. Though it was cool in the building, I was drenched with sweat. My back, neck and shoulders ached. I took her place in the chair and hoped my strength would return.
I sat there holding the flashlight on the wall as she’d been doing for me. The penlight threw off enough light to perfectly silhouette her body. Because the line she was cutting was about two feet above the floor, she had to squat and perch herself on one knee while she worked. Did I mention I’d had a few drinks and been looking at women earlier that night? Somehow the flashlight’s beam moved away from the hole in the wall and found a home on Callie’s perfect backside.
“Do you mind?” she said.
“Not at all.”
“Dude!” she said. “We’re trying to save a life here.”
“Spoilsport.”
I reluctantly moved the beam back to the wall where it belonged. Twenty minutes later I began the final assault with the sledge hammer. Twenty minutes after that, I’d created an opening large enough for Callie to slip through, and she did. She took a flashlight with her and I placed mine on the floor of the room to add some light.
I was only able to fit my head and neck into the opening, but that was enough to see that Alison’s room was small, with a bed, a TV, a toilet, sink, and a mini fridge that probably held water and food. But Alison was enjoying none of these comforts. She was completely naked, chained to the wall. Her mouth was covered in tape that encircled her head. Above and below the tape I could see the top and bottom of a red bondage ball Quinn had forced into her mouth.
I had no idea how long she’d been chained to the wall like that, but she was at least thirty pounds thinner than the last time I’d seen her. She was also clearly in agony, and there was a large puddle of urine beneath her. Callie turned to me and said, “What now?”
I backed out of the opening and retrieved a pair of heavy duty bolt cutters from my equipment bag. I passed the cutters through the hole to Callie. It took her a minute to cut the cuffs, then she said, “Donovan, give us a little privacy.”
I backed out of the opening again and waited while Alison used the toilet. I heard Callie say, “This will hurt less if I go slowly.” Then I heard the tape coming off Alison’s mouth. She gagged and coughed and sputtered. Callie kept saying, “It’s okay, Quinn’s dead, everything’s going to be all right.”
Callie got her cleaned up and dressed and helped her through the wall. When Alison emerged she gave me a cold look. Her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared.
“Your fault,” she said.
“My fault?”
“That’s right,” she said, launching the words aggressively. “It’s your fault. All of this.”
Callie said, “Donovan’s the only one in the world who figured out what happened to you. You’re safe because of him.”
Alison pushed me. “That’s the slowest rescue of all time,” she said. “Where’ve you been? You promised me a job.”
I said, “You ready to start tonight or you want to yell at me some more?”
Chapter 57
We got the hugely ungrateful Alison out of there, checked her into the hotel room between mine and Callie’s, got her fed, and got her story.
After I was declared dead, Alison had indeed entered into a romantic relationship with Quinn, hoping to cash in on the work I’d promised her. Like Quinn said, when Alison realized it wasn’t going to happen, she took off . Unfortunately for her, Quinn was the best guard in the business, and she didn’t get far. When he caught her they had some words and he kidnapped her and brought her to the warehouse.
When he was home, which was most of the time—Quinn doted on her. But whenever he left, he chained her to the wall, his way of making sure she was glad to see him when he came home. If he planned to be gone more than a few hours, he’d use a longer chain, one that allowed her access to all her comforts. Quinn had been gone about three hours and was on his way home when I caught up to him on Walnut Street.
So again, according to Alison, my fault.
“Did he beat you?” Callie asked.
“Occasionally,” Alison said.
“Did he force himself on you?”
“At least twice a day.”
“You ever put up a fight?”
“The times I did, that’s when he’d beat me.”
Here in the well-lit room she looked white as a ghost. I said, “Before tonight, how long had it been since you’ve been outdoors?”
“More than three years,” she said. “And the only reason I know that is that I had a TV.”
Callie gave her a sleeping pill and sat up with her until she fell asleep. Then she joined me in my room and we broke the seal on a bottle of mini bar wine and drank it while working out Alison’s training schedule.
I said, “I’ll give Lou the second and third weeks, you get the next three, and I’ll take the next two. Then she can shadow you on a couple of jobs. After that we’ll test her out on something easy, see how she handles it.”
“What’s the going rate for nurse maids these days?”
“Twenty grand a week, plus whatever you make on jobs.”
“Works for me,” Callie said. “Who gets her the first week?”
“Dr. Crouch. Because if Nadine doesn’t think she’s ready, we pass on the project, and try to help Alison get her old life back.”
I punched a key on my cell phone and winked at Callie. “Listen to this,” I said, pressing the speaker button.
Dr. Nadine Crouch answered by shouting, “Unacceptable!”
I said, “I’ve got a patient for you.”
“What’s the matter with you? Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“This is a good gig,” I said. “It will appeal to your avarice.”
“I’m trying to sleep, Donovan. Don’t ever call me in the middle of the night like this again. Unacceptable!”
“How’s twenty-five hundred a day sound?”
“I’m sure it will sound a lot better when I wake up in a couple of hours. Call me then,” she said, and hung up.
“She’s a bitter old bitch,” Callie said. “Don’t you think?”
“Yeah, she doesn’t care much for people, though she seems to like me.”
Callie shook her head. “You ever hear yourself talk?”
Chapter 58
Myron Goldstein was already parked at the rest stop at mile marker 177 just outside his home town of Cincinnati when I pulled up. I got out of my car and made a wide circle around his, checking for possible snipers. As I approached his passenger door, he unlocked it, and I got in.
“Sal says you want to die,” I said.
“You’re Creed?”
“I am.”
“I thought you’d be younger.”
“I thought you’d be older.”
Myron Goldstein nodded. He was a gaunt, sad-faced man with thick lips and sagging jowls. A thatch of wiry black hair protruded from each of his nostrils. He kept a wet, mucus-soaked handkerchief in one of his shaky hands, and used it to dab at the slimy fluid that steadily dripped from his nose. He wore thick horn-rimmed glasses.
I said, “The way this works, you tell me what’s on your mind and I’ll tell you what I think.”
“Have you always been a healthy man, Mr. Creed?”
“Can we just get to it?”
He smiled a thick-lipped smile. “Yes, of course,” he said. He paused for a moment to dab at his nose, and then said, “Are you familiar with ALS?”
“Lou Gehrig’s Disease?”
“Yes, that’s the one. ALS is a progressive, fatal, neurodegenerative disease that slowly but steadily robs your body of voluntary movement. The disorder causes your muscles to weaken, day by day, until they are unable to function. You can see it already in my hands. That’s not Parkinson’s, it’s called fasciculation, and it signals the beginning of the end.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” I said, and meant it. Looking at Myron Goldstein made me ashamed of myself. For the past seven weeks I’d been hosting a pity party over losing Kathleen and Addie, while this poor son of a bitch has been dying by inches. Of course it hurt to lose the people I’d wanted to grow old with—but Myron Goldstein wasn’t going to grow old at all. Maybe Kathleen and her fiancé would someday break up, allowing me to slip back into her life. Or maybe not. But at least I had a future to dream about, which was a hell of a lot more than Myron Goldstein was going to get.
“So what you’re saying, you want me to kill you, put you out of your misery.”
“Yes.”
“Why not just commit suicide? You’d save fifty grand.”
“I have insurance policies worth much more. But they don’t pay for suicide.”
“I have to say no,” I said.
“Why not?”
“This money, fifty thousand dollars. It’s money your wife and kids should have.”
He tapped the envelope on the console between us. Beyond this, I have no other money,” he said. “The insurance will pay off most of my debts and allow my wife to keep the house, the car, and have a comfortable life. It may not be enough to put my kids through Dartmouth, but there are state schools available if they can’t qualify for scholarships. More than anything, if I go now it will spare my family having to care for me the last year of my life. I don’t want them to go into debt, have to put their dreams on hold, watching me die a slow and horrible death.”
“What’s so great about Dartmouth?” I said. “Their football program sucks.”
“Don’t get me started,” he said, laughing. “I might wind up killing you!”
I couldn’t help but like the man. When Callie put a bullet in Robbie, I finished him off , to end his suffering. Myron was suffering too, but—
“Killing you,” I said, “It doesn’t seem right, somehow.”
Myron laughed hard enough to start coughing, which caused him to hack up all sorts of disgusting elements.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“No offense, but you kill people for a living. Does that seem right?”
“The people I kill, they don’t have a choice. You do.”
“And I’ve made it. So which is the better kill?”
We went silent a minute, me thinking about it, him giving me time to do so.
“Put yourself in my shoes,” he said. “What would you do?”
I thought about my heart, wondered if there was any way to fulfill this contract without causing a relapse.
“You ever kill a man?” I said.
“Heavens no!”
“Ever cheat on your wife, beat your kids, anything along those lines?”
“No.” He saw where this was going. “I’ve yelled at my kids a lot, and scolded my dog.”
“Scolded your dog?”
“More than once.”
“You bastard!” I said.
He smiled.
I smiled.
Then I slit his throat.
Chapter 59
It was about four in the afternoon when the dry wall guys finished laying their last coat of mud. A bunch of them planned to meet up afterward at a nearby tavern, but I said they’d have to celebrate without me this time.
The temperature was mild, and several hours of daylight remained. I loitered around the lot of the newly-constructed 8,500 square-foot home, picking up trash until the last worker drove away. Then I set to work.
The house at 2010 Dunvegan sat on the cul-de-sac of a new development called Rock Hill Gardens. Several homes in the neighborhood had already made it to closing, but none were inhabited yet. When seeking an attic to live in I prefer high income spec homes like these in new, protected neighborhoods. I cordon off a cubicle in a strategic gable of a house like this and use it as a safe house. I had a number of these safe houses scattered in major cities throughout the country, but this would be my first in Atlanta.
