Cut and Run

Chapter 20

‘Tell me what I want to know or I’m going to put you out of business. Permanently.’

‘You’re gonna shoot me, Hunter? Do it. See how much information that gets you.’

‘I’m not going to shoot you. Not yet.’ With my left hand I grabbed Kenneth Wetherby by his throat, sinking my fingers tightly each side of his oesophagus, and hauled him backwards over his own desk. A laser printer and a stack of papers were knocked flying and scattered over the floor. Then I dumped Wetherby on his back on the threadbare carpet. I slipped my SIG back into my waistband and bunched my right fist. ‘First I’m going to beat the living shit out of you.’

I’d only been in Miami a little over twelve hours and already I’d made a few new enemies and reacquainted myself with another. Rink had also earned himself some anger, but the man he’d knocked cold wasn’t voicing an opinion just yet. Rink stood threatening another two men with his fists while I roughed up their boss.

I loosened my grip on Wetherby’s throat enough that he could answer my questions. ‘Tell me who it is.’

‘Are you fucking insane? Coming here like this, you’ve just earned yourself a bullet with your name on it.’

‘I’ve already got someone trying to kill me,’ I snarled. ‘And you know who it is. Tell me, you fuckin’ arsehole.’

‘I don’t know, goddamnit! Whoever it is, he’s not on my books.’

I grabbed him off the floor. But only for as long as it took to slam him against his office wall. Wetherby slid back down to the ground, his arms covering his head. I kicked him in the pit of his stomach: should have gone for his balls, but I was more interested in intimidating him than putting him fully out of commission.

Wetherby’s pinched gaze went to his two friends. ‘You gonna help me here? What the fuck am I payin’ you idiots for?’

The two men glanced at their fallen companion. They’d just witnessed Rink putting the biggest of them out with a single back fist strike to his jaw. Maybe they thought it was a lucky punch — maybe they had a little sense of duty — because they launched themselves at Rink. Bad mistake.

Rink ducked the first man’s cumbersome overhand punch, came up and blasted the point of his elbow into the man’s face. I heard his nose break all the way from the other side of the room. Even as he was falling, Rink caught the second man’s right arm, pivoted so that the elbow was hyper-extended and pulled the man forwards and off balance. In the next instant Rink reversed direction, folding the man’s wrist back on itself. In an aikido dojo, the recipient of such a move would flip out of the joint lock and avoid injury — but this thug was no aikido specialist. He went the wrong way and his wrist and elbow snapped as loudly as had his friend’s nose. Rink released the man’s arm. It was useless now as a point of control. The man went to his knees cradling his busted arm. He was screaming. Rink whipped a shin kick into the man’s head to put him out of his misery.

Rink turned and fed his thumbs into his belt. He grinned at Wetherby. ‘What are you payin’ those idiots for?’

I caught Wetherby by his collar and pulled him up. He was out of wind from the kick to his guts and I wasn’t going to give him an opportunity to catch his breath. I spun him round and threw him backwards so that he landed in his office chair. The chair skidded a couple of feet before he banged against the office window overlooking MacArthur Causeway. We were only nine floors up the fifty-storey building but the road still looked a long way down from here. I followed him and caught him by the chin, twisting his head so he got a skewed look out over Biscayne Bay. ‘Unless you want a one-way trip down there, you’d better start talking, Wetherby.’

‘This has got nothing to do with me. I don’t even know why you’d think that.’

There were reasons. Harvey Lucas had come up with a couple of names from his search of ex-military with sniper training. They were on Wetherby’s books. Then there was the fact that Wetherby had once tried to recruit me, except the kind of people he supplied muscle to were the type I usually banged heads with. I’d told Wetherby to stick his job where the sun didn’t shine and as a parting shot Wetherby had told me I’d made a big mistake crossing him and his outfit. There had to be a reckoning. Sooner or later I’d have been calling on Wetherby again, so this visit had turned out to be quite fortunate, just a little sooner than anticipated.

‘We know that your business is just a front,’ I said. ‘You can masquerade as a security consultancy, but the truth is that you supply mercenaries to those willing to pay your fees. It’s well known that you’re indiscreet about the kind of people you serve.’

‘Listen to me, Hunter. Doesn’t matter what you think… this has nothing to do with me.’

‘Stop screaming like a bitch,’ I snapped. ‘Now, we have two names: Jean Shrier and Ben Le Duke. Where are they now?’

‘I’m not telling you that. I have a duty of care to those who work for me. You can’t expect me to divulge classified information?’

‘You will unless you fancy takin’ a dive through that window,’ Rink said.

I grabbed hold of his chair and dragged it back to his desk. The computer had avoided the crashing fall to the floor that had cleared the rest of his work space. ‘Bring up their files, Wetherby.’

‘Don’t need to. Neither of them are who you’re looking for.’

‘Where are they?’

Wetherby sighed. His eyes went to the loose pile of unconscious men littering his office. ‘You didn’t get this from me, OK?’

‘Just get on with it,’ I said.

‘Shrier’s got a gig protecting a Hong Kong businessman. Le Duke, he’s over in Nigeria protecting an oil field. I told you… they’re not involved.’

I pulled out a photograph supplied to me by Walter.

‘Him?’

‘Don’t know the guy.’

‘Look again,’ I ordered. ‘He was a pilot. Miguel Suarez. Did he work for you?’

Wetherby picked up on the past tense.

‘He’s dead?’

‘A bullet in the skull kinda has that effect on most folks,’ Rink said. His words were loaded and Wetherby picked up on that too.

Wetherby shook his head. ‘Still don’t know him.’

‘You don’t seem to know very much,’ I said. ‘For such a top guy as you think you are.’

He shrugged and I could see he was beginning to gather a little composure. ‘I told you that all along.’

‘You’re still a prick.’

He gave me a sickly smile. ‘You’re wrong about me. In every way.’

‘Just hope that I never find out otherwise, Wetherby. If I have to come back again, things will be much worse next time.’

I punched him directly in his face, aiming to cause pain rather than unconsciousness. Let him dwell on that for a while.

We left Wetherby tending his bleeding face. Back outside the office building we stood side by side and looked out across the water towards Miami Beach. It was early in the morning in late February, and here in the subtropics it was unseasonably warm, but I felt very cold.

‘Dead end,’ I said to Rink.

‘It was always a long shot. At least you taught Wetherby not to fuck with you again.’

‘Maybe.’ I clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Except if they’re going to be frightened of anyone, I guess that it’ll be you. Those were some good moves back there.’

‘It don’t take much to slap down a few pussies like them,’ he said, playing it cool.

‘I’m surprised you broke that guy’s arm. You’re not usually as brutal as that.’

‘You didn’t see the switchblade he pulled outa his pocket?’

‘Too busy with Wetherby,’ I admitted.

‘Here,’ he said, handing me a black-handled flick knife — old type, like something out of Rebel without a Cause. ‘Memento for you.’

I slipped the knife into my jeans pocket. My mobile was ringing and I pulled it out.

It was Harvey.

‘How’d things go with Wetherby?’

‘Waste of time,’ I said. ‘We’re going to keep looking, though. Couple other names in Miami I want to look up.’

‘You might want to get yourselves back here first.’

‘Problem?’

‘No. A possible lead.’

‘Who?’

‘Not who: what. Walter’s liaising with the local PD on what looks like a hit that went wrong. The mark turned the tables this time.’

‘He’s dead?’ Part of me wished that was true, but another part was full of regret. After what he’d done to Imogen I still wanted my day with the killer.

‘That’s the thing, Hunter. It looks like the man you’re after was the mark this time. He killed three men as quick as you like.’

It was just an expression, but in reality I would have said quite the opposite. I didn’t like this turn of events one bit.