Chapter 24

I was in my room at the motel outside Arlington when a knock came at the door.

I’d been sitting on the bed with my SIG on my lap. Standing up, I held the gun close to my hip as I walked across the room. I’d pulled the blinds shut on arrival, so had to peel one of the slats aside to take a look outside.

If I’d never seen the Bolan twins, I’d have thought the two guys standing outside were huge. Rink stands about six three and Harvey is a shade taller. Rink is built like Mr Universe, while Harvey looks more lithe and rangy, like a young Muhammad Ali. They were an odd-looking combination. Rink’s part Japanese and has the blue-black hair and hooded eyes of his mother. His muscular build is down to his Scottish ancestry on his father’s side. Harvey on the other hand was blue-black all over, from his bald head down. Rink had on a denim jacket and jeans over a white T-shirt. Harvey looked as slick as ever I’d seen him in a silver-grey suit with matching shirt and tie. Harvey had a laptop bag with him, which he’d hung from one shoulder. He was fixing his cuffs as I peeked out at them.

They were my best friends in the entire world and I was pleased to see them both.

I let them in. Harvey came in first, while Rink took a last look behind them. Harvey put out his hand and I shook with him. Then Rink followed and grabbed me in a bear hug. He squeezed me and I was reminded of the kicking that Larry Bolan had lain on my ribs.

‘Easy, big guy,’ I laughed. You’d think we hadn’t seen each other for years instead of the few days it had been. But that’s Rink for you.

‘Things looked clear on the way over here,’ Harvey said.

‘I was hoping that we would spot a tail,’ Rink said. ‘After coolin’ my heels at court all week I could’ve done with the action.’

Distracted by the fact that Kate was being held by dangerous people, I didn’t care much about Rupert Heavey. If his defence attorneys called for a mistrial due to the no-show of the key prosecuting witness, then to hell with it. It was like Rink said: there were more ways to skin Heavey than by putting him through the legal system.

Shutting the door behind them, I got the preamble out of the way. ‘You said you had something interesting about Robert Huffman?’

Harvey slid the bag off his shoulder and pulled out his laptop. He cabled it up to a socket in the wall. We’d chosen this motel because it advertised internet access in all rooms. Sitting on the bed with the computer on his thighs, Harvey began tapping keys. A minute later he turned the screen to me so I could take a look.

‘Robert Huffman,’ Harvey said. ‘Entrepreneur businessman. Multi-millionaire.’

Huffman was a good-looking guy. No doubt about it. He looked fit and healthy, and dressed the part. He was wearing a navy suit, white shirt, light red tie. He had a lot of upper-body definition that the suit couldn’t disguise. Long slim legs. He looked like an athlete who’d retired from competition but had kept up his training regime. He had short, immaculately styled hair. It was growing grey, but it gave him that ‘distinguished look’ that people talk about. His face was tanned and lean.

Whoever had taken the photograph had caught him smiling, but I didn’t buy the look. His lips were too tight and his dark eyes too cold. He had the black depthless gaze of a shark.

I stared at his photograph and I hated the bastard.

Harvey tapped keys and another shot of Huffman came up on the screen. He was younger in this shot. His hair was black. Still smiling without any emotion extending to his dead eyes. Except this time he was wearing an orange jumpsuit. There were numbers beneath his name.

‘He’s done time,’ I said.

Harvey pointed at the name of the correctional unit. Seagoville. A federal prison on US Highway 75 to the south — east of Dallas. Not far from where we were.

‘Minimum security,’ Harvey said. ‘Huffman did time, yeah, but it wasn’t hard time.’

‘What was he locked up for?’

‘He cut a man’s throat.’

‘And he only went to a minimum security prison?’

‘The charges were dropped from murder in the first when he hit the cops with a little quid pro quo,’ Rink explained. ‘He went state evidence against his former employers, the Texas Syndicate. In exchange for putting away the Felitta brothers, his charges were dropped to manslaughter. He did three years’ soft time at Seagoville.’

‘I’m surprised he made it out the other end. No one likes a grass.’

Harvey raised his eyebrows. ‘No one fucks with Quicksilver.’

‘Quicksilver?’

‘That was Huffman’s street name. He was the Dallas syndicate’s top enforcer. By all accounts he was a very capable killer. No one was going to go against him.’

‘Not when it was all a set-up,’ Rink added.

‘What kind of set-up?’

‘There’s an assumption that it was just a plot to get rid of the Felittas,’ Rink said. ‘His arrest allowed him to talk to the DEA out from under the eyes of his bosses. The Felittas were the supposed power in the syndicate, but Huffman was just bubbling away under the surface, ready to take over when he got his chance.’

‘So he gave the DEA all they needed to put the Felittas away,’ I said, ‘with the intention of taking over where they left off? Criminals don’t stand around when there’s a gap in the market, I’d have thought some other outfit would have moved in while he was away.’

Harvey shook his head. ‘It wasn’t like that, Hunter. The other syndicates stayed out of the way. They left Dallas alone for when Huffman could come back. His actions with the Felittas have been forgiven by the other syndicate heads, if you get my meaning?’

‘It suited them that the Felittas were out of the picture?’

‘Yeah,’ Harvey said. ‘The Felittas were old school: no one wanted to deal with them any more. When he was released from prison the other syndicate heads welcomed Huffman back with open arms. In some eyes his going down for three years was seen as heroic; like he’s some goddamn martyr to the cause.’

‘So he did his three years then walked out and into the Felittas’ shoes?’

‘Not exactly,’ Harvey said. ‘The syndicates left Dallas alone, but others had moved in. By the time Huffman came back the street gangs were running the narcotics and prostitution. But Huffman wasn’t interested in that any more. He saw his future in real estate. You’ve seen what he’s been up to around Little Fork, right? That’s only one of his ventures.’

‘There are others?’

‘Many others.’

‘So he has plenty of people in his pocket,’ I assumed. ‘Plenty of Bolans and Aitkens to pull on if need be?’

‘My guess is that there are lots of people at his beck and call,’ Harvey said. ‘But they’re not the ones we should be worried about. The other syndicates owe him. He did time for them. He can probably pull on any of the mobs, ask for their help. We could be going up against some of the top enforcers in the country.’

‘Bring it on,’ Rink said. He looked like he meant it.

‘Mob enforcers aren’t usually the type to work outside their frame,’ I said. ‘It isn’t as if every syndicate in the country is going to send their best man. You ask me, there’d be way too many competing egos. They’d probably spend more time fighting each other than they would looking for me.’

‘It only takes one,’ Harvey said. ‘If he’s good enough.’

‘Yeah.’ It was a sobering thought.

Huffman hadn’t been talking about only one man. He’d been talking plural. We really had no idea about how many men he was sending against me. But it didn’t matter; if they came I’d stop them. Simple as that. I wasn’t going to worry about them until they showed up. I certainly wasn’t going to run and hide.

‘Why Quicksilver?’ I asked.

It was Rink who chose to answer. He did so in his usual drawl. ‘The pussy is good with a blade. Skilled and very fast, they say. Y’know, as in quick with the silver?’

‘We’ve been there before.’ I saw Rink’s fingers go to a livid scar on his chin. The scar was courtesy of Tubal Cain, a serial killer who was very good with a knife. Cain made the mistake of abducting my brother, John, and we’d hunted him down. Cain had cut the two of us — he’d almost killed me, but I’d rammed a bone from his stash of trophies in his throat. ‘We’ll stop Huffman, too.’

‘Don’t underestimate him, guys,’ Harvey cautioned. ‘There are stories about Huffman. Apparently his specialty is to slice the throat, but he’s also been known to peel off the faces of his enemies while they’re still alive. If the stories about him are true, he’s as bad a dude as any you’ve gone up against.’

I sniffed in disdain. But Harvey was right: you should never underestimate anyone, especially when he was the top enforcer of a crime syndicate. Nobody gains that accolade without proving himself.

‘Any word from Imogen yet?’ Rink asked.

I shook my head.

‘Let me have her number,’ Harvey said. ‘I’ll see if her phone can be located.’

Passing Kate’s phone over to him, I said, ‘I doubt you’ll get anywhere. My guess is that Huffman’s already tried that.’

Harvey smiled. ‘Huffman won’t have the contacts I have.’

He handed the phone back after memorising the number. ‘Keep that close in case Imogen does get back to you.’

‘I’m expecting another call,’ I explained, putting Kate’s phone in my jacket pocket.

‘Huffman?’ Harvey asked.

‘He’s bound to press Kate for a way to contact me. He’ll find out that she left her phone back at the motel and guess that I have it now.’

‘Maybe we should get rid of it. He could use it to find you.’

‘You said he didn’t have the contacts you do.’

‘And I mean it, but it’s easy to find an active phone. Kate’s service provider could run a search for hers. I don’t doubt he has contacts at that level.’

‘We don’t have to worry about that, Harvey, because I’m going to find him first.’

‘Assuming he’s here, that is,’ Rink said.

‘He’s here. It’s his home turf; it’s where he’ll feel strongest.’

‘Shouldn’t be too difficult to find him,’ Harvey put in. ‘All I need do is a search of public records. See who owns what and then track back to a registered office.’

‘Or we could look in a phone book.’

I picked the yellow pages off a stand by the bed and dropped it next to Harvey. It was open to a page I’d marked by folding down a corner. ‘Huffman is supposed to be a bona fide businessman these days. He has his own ad right there.’

Harvey laughed. He closed down his computer and picked up the telephone directory.

‘Sometimes the old ways are the best,’ I said.

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