He took the question in. Obviously Susan had mentioned to Gina that Behr had once had a son. He had to assume that they also knew the boy was no longer alive, though perhaps they didn’t know the circumstances of his death. Either way, it wasn’t what Decker was asking, and it didn’t make Behr want to revisit the terrain.
“Well, I remember this: about six days before and six days after the birth, until when her milk comes in, your wife sure isn’t the woman you married. Hormones. Try to remember that when you think you’re living in
The Exorcist.
”
Decker just nodded. Behr saw he wasn’t looking for jokes and something resembling sobriety descended on him. The young cop’s question deserved a real answer and he only hoped he was worthy of giving one.
“What do you want to know?” Behr asked, doing his best to keep the iron cauldron lid in his chest sealed up tight.
“Well, I’m pretty sure Gina’s got a handle on the basics. But I want to do things right, and the way I came up, I don’t have much of a … role model.”
Behr turned and looked at Decker, who finished off his drink. For a minute he seemed young, actually resembling his twenty-something years. Behr wanted to help him, and cast about in his brain for a way to do it.
“That doesn’t matter,” Behr began. “When you become a father, the—” he looked for the right words “—the slights and grudges, whatever you want to call the shortcomings of your own childhood, they get pushed aside. They’ve got to, because they’ve got nothing to do with the kid that’s coming. You don’t want to be the same father you had, and you don’t want to be a direct reaction to that either …”
That’s when Behr saw it happen: Decker’s eyes went a flat, distant black. A palpable darkness filled the air, and Behr got the feeling Decker wasn’t really in the room with him anymore. A silence grew to an uncomfortable length, and Behr did something he didn’t often do, which was reach for a social convention and continue in a more positive vein so the whole conversation, the whole night, didn’t crumble to dust.
“It’s a fresh start is all I’m saying. You’re gonna feel that you need to find a way to be more or better than you are, for the sake of the kid … And you will. You’ll do it. It’ll be an inspiration like you’ve never had before. So try not to worry about it.”
Everyone knows the best salesmen believe wholly in their product, and, as such, Behr realized he wasn’t much of pitchman for the bright side.
They both looked at their glasses and grunted and made their way to the counter where the bottle was. That’s where the
ladies, bearing plates of cobbler, found them and added a soothing social balm to the proceedings. Susan and Gina talked and laughed. They all finished their desserts, and it seemed Decker came back to himself.
“So, boys and girls, I’m fizzling out here,” Susan said after a bit.
“Me too,” Gina said, and they all stood.
“C’mon, Jeeves,” Decker said to his wife, throwing an arm around Gina’s neck, and then turned to Behr and Susan, “that’s her chauffeur’s name. I got me a designated driver.”
Gina gave him a shot to the stomach. “You get a driver, and I get to carry a bowling ball around for nine months,” she said.
Decker just laughed. “That’s the price for twenty minutes of glory,” he said, then stuck a hand out to Behr. “Sorry to leave you hanging, buddy. Nothing worse than an incomplete bender.”
“Nah, it was good enough, and I’m up plenty early tomorrow, too,” Behr said.
“Work?” Gina asked.
“After I push some pavement,” he said, thinking ruefully of his morning run after countless drinks.
“What time?” Decker asked as they reached the door.
“Six o’clock, Saddle Hill,” Behr said.
“See you there,” Decker said with a cockeyed, drunken grin. He weaved off toward the car in a way that told Behr just how unlikely that was going to be.
The company was gone, the dishes washed, the lights off, and Susan was asleep, when Behr crossed a line he didn’t ordinarily with someone he’d met socially. He went ahead and ran Decker’s background, starting with his military record. What he saw there was impressive and vivid. Decker had been a Recon Marine, which was an elite branch, and his Military Occupational Specialty was Scout-Sniper, as stated. Behr saw that Decker had entered the service when he was seventeen, and also had seventeen
confirmed kills logged per his service record. It was a big number when one considered what it meant. And Behr knew that the CKs on the record only represented a percentage of kills, and that most snipers had many more unconfirmed. That meant that the big kid sitting in his living room trying to figure out his life had dropped the hammer on twenty, two-dozen, thirty, or maybe more human beings.
He’d been awarded two Bronze Stars, a Silver Star, and a Purple Heart for his work. He’d been to recon school and demolition school and jump school at Benning, home of the Army Rangers. Then Behr saw something that really caught his eye. Family: none. That got him off the Department of Defense site and out into the world of civilian information. He discovered that after his discharge, Decker had served a nine-month stint with a defense contractor called K-Bar USA, and then Behr continued into the regular news and municipal record bases for Franklin, Indiana, and then Missouri, where Decker said he’d grown up. Once he was searching Missouri, the story wasn’t hard to find.
The Springfield
News-Leader
reported the basics:
An area man snapped at his home outside Springfield yesterday, killing his wife, daughter and infant son with a deer rifle. The man, identified as William Lawrence Decker, also fired at his thirteen-year-old son, hitting the boy, who ran and escaped, before turning the gun on himself. Decker, a teacher, had been unemployed since moving to the area a few months earlier. Neighbors said the family kept to themselves, but seemed normal, and saw no signs of the outburst. The boy was admitted to Cox South Hospital in serious but stable condition and will survive the incident.
Behr sat there, his blood running cold, a headache pounding at his temples as the liquor left his system. He imagined Decker as
a boy, as a young man, and even now, wrestling with why he had survived, why he had failed to save his family, and whether he would’ve been better off stopping and letting another bullet from his father’s gun rip through him and take him to a place beyond doubt. A lone follow-up story mentioned that “the boy” had been sent to live with his dead mothers’ parents once he’d recovered. After that kind of childhood, the military was probably about the only thing that made sense.
Behr shut the computer, sorry he had checked, sorry he knew, and even sorrier that it had happened in the first place. It seemed like a world of sorry out there that got deeper and darker the later the night grew. Not knowing what else to do, he peeled off his clothes and crawled into bed.
Dwyer had invested his entire day in his stakeout and was completely knackered after nearly thirty-six hours straight awake and on the job. He also found himself someplace he didn’t often visit, which was at the limits of his patience. With the telephone number he’d gotten from the La Pasión boys, Dwyer had been able to use a reverse directory program on the laptop back in his room. It was a bit sloppy of Banco to have ended up trackable by landline, but he must’ve figured he needed comms in his hide, and he’d know that a mobile would have to be turned off and the battery removed to make sure he wasn’t traceable by that. In the end, it had taken him a hell of a good deal of work to uncover the address, 1701 Wilmette Avenue, and find the building. This told him that Banco hadn’t completely abandoned his fieldcraft. He was still being careful. The lime green stucco apartment house wasn’t a half bad hidey-hole either, out of the way and nondescript as it was. Now though, sitting outside wasn’t yielding any more answers for Dwyer, and he didn’t expect he’d be lucky ducky enough to catch Banco leaving or coming. It was time to go in.
The building was poorly secured, and earlier in the day, he’d found a way inside. As far as he could tell, there were no security cameras on the doors, nor was there a video feed on the front door buzzer that might have been run through a backup recording system. The ground floor of the building had a long front-to-back
hallway with a steel door in the rear that had been wedged open, probably to allow for a cross breeze, and the only thing stopping entry was a locked wire mesh gate. Dwyer had gripped the cheap knob and given it a good yank, and it had popped right open.
He’d gone upstairs to the second floor and looked at the door to 2G but couldn’t figure a way through without blasting it off its hinges, and that wasn’t going to be conducive to a conversation once he was inside. So he’d retired to the rented car to give it a think. After a few hours, once darkness had descended, Dwyer had finally picked up his mobile and dialed.
“Sí?”
Banco answered, as if he’d been woken.
“I’m here. Outside,” Dwyer said. “Let’s talk.”
“The door will be open,” Banco said after a long pause, and rang off.
Dwyer didn’t bother with getting buzzed in but instead popped the cheap gate once again, this time with a handkerchief in his hand, which he also used to turn the knob to Banco’s door.
He entered the small, sparsely furnished apartment and saw Banco, sick and pale, propped in a bed with soiled coverings, backed up against the wall in a corner away from the windows; and one whiff told him Banco was suffering gunshot sepsis. The cheap curtains allowed enough streetlight in for Dwyer to see there was an assault rifle pointed at him. Banco’s gaze seemed firm and his grip steady enough that it discouraged Dwyer from rushing him and grabbing the barrel and ripping the gun away.
“Qué pasa, ’migo?”
Dwyer said.
“You found me,” Banco said, shifting a bit, in apparent great pain.
“Sure.”
“How are Benito and Boli?” Banco asked.
Dwyer understood he meant the men from La Pasión.
“Fine,” he said.
“They told you where I was?” Banco asked. Dwyer didn’t respond, just shrugged. “Because they didn’t know …”
“The number was enough. I paid them for it,” Dwyer said.
“I called them back a few times, couldn’t reach them,” Banco said.
“Probably out partyin’,” Dwyer tossed. He moved closer and noticed piles of gauze bandages and white cotton undershirts and rags stained red and yellow with blood and pus on the floor at the foot of the bed.
“Let me see what you got?” Dwyer said, taking another step closer. Banco tipped the barrel of the gun up toward Dwyer’s chest, stopping him, but flipped back the bedsheets and lifted away a wet, bloody bandage, revealing a hit in the meat of his flank just above his hip bone.
“Goddamn in and out. But still …” Banco said.
Dwyer went near the wall of the small kitchenette and flicked the light switch. A fluorescent kicked on in three stages and threw enough light for him to see the black entry point the width of a pencil. Banco leaned forward and Dwyer saw where it had come out, that hole the diameter of a two pence piece. Red splotches and streaks surrounded the wound, which oozed a thick and foul green.
“That’s close enough,” Banco said, leveling the assault rifle at Dwyer more directly. He recognized it now. It was an H&K 33, of German make, the rifle of the Salvadoran army, and Banco’s old service weapon.
“What in fuck’s name happened, Banco?” Dwyer asked.
Banco shrugged. “I got the call. I went to the location. Just like the plan. I set it up—the elevator, the lights, the car—and I waited. I opened up on ’em and was walking him down to finish. But the fucking car was armored … and he had this guy with him—”
“You knew he’d have a man with him,” Dwyer said, doing his best to tamp down his anger.
“Well, this motherfucker wasn’t the one I expected. And he was good. Or lucky,” Banco said with disgust, gesturing at his wound.
“What type of guy?”
“Big. And tall. Dark hair, dark suit, mustache,” Banco said and it made Dwyer wonder for a moment before he refocused.
“What about your backup shooter?” Dwyer asked.
Banco just shook his head.
“You didn’t use a backup shooter?” Dwyer was shocked. A three-man team was minimum industry standard. “Are you fucking retarded or something, man? At least the bloody driver should have been a backup …” Dwyer tailed off when he caught the look in Banco’s black eyes.
“Fucking ’ell, you went in solo?” Dwyer asked, equal parts incredulity and disgust. “Why?”
“I needed the money, man,” Banco said simply.
“You were paid fifty K, with another fifty coming at the finish.”
“There’s no work. I couldn’t afford a split. It’s been two years since I’ve had any job worth shit. I needed all of it.”
“And look at you fucking now,” Dwyer said, his fury leaking out. “I thought you were a bloody professional.”
Short money, the root of all botch-ups
, he seethed to himself.
“Help me get well, and we’ll go finish this thing together,” Banco said.
“I don’t know about the second part there, Braveheart.” Dwyer shook his head. “The target’s all buttoned up now …”
A look of fear came over Banco as he realized what his failure meant. The two men stared at each other. Dwyer had been on ops down in Salvador with Banco. They’d been on bivouac together, a thirty-day stint, in shit jungle doing nasty things. That kind of time created a bond. He’d directed Banco’s fire, and Banco took orders and responded under pressure. That, and because he was familiar with the city, were why Dwyer thought to use him.
But now … but now …
“Just so you know, Waddy,” he said, “I have some things in place if anything happens to me. Information you don’t want getting out.”
Dwyer stared at Banco. He didn’t particularly believe him. The guy had been no-bullshit, ex-army when he’d met him a
dozen years ago. But he couldn’t be sure one way or the other whether Banco had put some insurance in place, so he played along.
“If anything happens to you? You’ve got one foot in the boat and it’s ready to cross the river, man …” Dwyer said.
“You’ve got to help me,” Banco said. The fear he’d been doing a good job keeping out of his voice made itself heard for the first time.