No Safe House

Thirty-five

Vince Fleming held back in the bathroom of Eldon Koch’s apartment for a full minute after Terry Archer had left and closed the door. He didn’t want to take a chance that asshole would change his mind and come charging back in.

Maybe he should have shot him, too.

Damn you, Eldon.

Vince told himself it was Eldon who’d forced the play. He’d made it damn clear he wasn’t going along with Vince’s plan. And if Eldon wasn’t going to help cover up what had happened to Stuart, well, it was like they said. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

And covering up the circumstances of Stuart’s death, steering the police away from anything to do with Vince and his operation, was a big problem.

If Eldon wouldn’t play his role in a story that would place Stuart all over the country for several weeks, if not months, into the future, then what, exactly, was he planning to do? Go to the police? Work some kind of deal in return for testifying against his boss? He just might have, especially since he seemed to believe Vince was responsible for Stuart’s death.

Where’d he get a crazy idea like that?

Eldon was spouting some pretty insane shit there, right before the end. Suggesting Vince not only killed his son, but was ripping off his clients. Taking their money, scamming them into thinking he’d safeguard it, when in fact he was waiting until he had enough squirreled away, at which point he’d round it all up and take off.

Vince didn’t like it that Eldon had ideas like that in his head. He wondered whether Gordie and Bert had ever thought the same thing.

Vince emerged from the tiny bathroom and walked tentatively to the door. Looked to see whether Terry Archer was still out there, maybe standing on the steps. He saw a car parked across the street, Archer behind the wheel, just sitting there.

What the hell?

He was waiting. Waiting for Stuart or Eldon to come home. Vince touched the warm coffee on the counter.

“Shit,” he said to himself. Archer was probably thinking someone would come back for the coffees. But sooner or later, he’d have to leave.

Vince was stuck here until then.

He went back to the bedroom, looked at Eldon’s body sprawled across the bed, blood soaking into the sheets. “You dumb bastard,” Vince said under his breath. “You think I wanted to do that?”

How were Gordie and Bert going to react? The three of them had worked together a long time. They were friends. Vince believed he could persuade them that he’d done the only thing he could. Eldon lost it, he’d tell them. Was spouting crazy talk. His grief had made him irrational, a liability. No telling what he might say, or who he might say it to. If he’d talked to the cops, it wouldn’t have been just Vince who’d take the fall. Gordie and Bert would go down with him.

They’d see that. They’d understand.

They needed to know Eldon had screwed up. Big time. He’d been sloppy with the details of their operation, allowed his son to know what was going on. When you thought about it, Eldon was as much to blame for what had happened to his son as the person who’d pulled the trigger on him.

Gordie and Bert would see that.

Still, it wouldn’t be easy for them, having to come back here, tonight, when it was dark, to clean up this mess. To get rid of the body of a man they’d come to know. Vince was sure they’d grieve, but they’d know it had to be done.

Jesus. First Stuart, now Eldon.

Vince had had a plan worked out to explain Stuart’s disappearance. Let the cops think he died by misadventure while exploring America. Coming up with an explanation for Eldon’s disappearance might take more work. He’d have to give it some thought. If there was one silver lining, the one person who’d have noticed he was missing was no longer around.

Vince propped himself against the doorjamb. “Weary” didn’t begin to describe how he felt. Beaten. Defeated.

He could almost feel his insides being eaten away. The doctor wasn’t able to say with any certainty how much longer he had. Six months? A year at the outside? He might be able to buy himself more time with aggressive treatment, but Vince wanted no part of that.

Better to just keep going, as best he could, for as long as he could.

Or maybe not.

Vince got out his phone, entered a number.

“Yeah?” said Gordie.

“Where are you?”

“I’m heading back to the shop. Done all I can do for the moment. Cleared out a few places where I could, but I still got some to go.”

“Bert with you?”

“No. He’s still doing the rounds. I’ve got, like, four hundred grand, some coke, some hardware in the car. What do you want us to do with it?”

Vince wondered whether he himself was going to have to open a safe-deposit box. The fucking irony of it.

“Leave that with me,” Vince said. “I’ve got some new fires to put out.”

“Great. We really need more of those.”

“Archer’s still snooping around.”

“I thought you talked to him.”

“I did, but he didn’t get the message. I got an idea how we might solve that, at least temporarily.”

He told Gordie his idea. “I can do that,” Gordie said. “And what else?”

“I’ll tell you when I see you.”

“Okay. Look, the good news, if there is any, is so far it looks like our problems are limited to the Cummings house. Kinda puts the dog walker in the crosshairs.”

Vince said, “See ya in a bit.”

He took another look at Eldon, caught a whiff of the coppery blood smell.

He rolled the body up in the bedsheets, grunting and struggling with the effort. There was a roll of plastic sheeting in the truck, and some duct tape. He’d try to get Eldon wrapped up now. Save them some work when they came back here tonight. He’d turn up the AC unit tucked in the window full blast. Anything to help in this heat. He hoped Eldon wasn’t too ripe by the time they returned.

“I’m sorry,” Vince said. “I should have given you a chance to say good-bye to your boy.”