The Finishing School

47

BUD GAVE the bodyguards an extra hour to work before heading out to Williamsburg himself to speak with Trevor Leonard. Softening-up time, he thought of it as. So it came as no surprise when he let himself in the back door of the warehouse and found the kid lying unconscious on the bare concrete floor, his face a pulpy mess.

Pavel was sitting against the wall eating a meatball hero.

“He’s not dead?” Bud asked.

“No, you say not kill him yet,” Pavel said, speaking through his food, sounding defensive.

Bud dropped the leather bag containing Jay’s golf clubs next to the kid’s inert body. He’d paid attention to which one Jay had used the other night. Bud had a well-thought-out plan for how he would use that same club again and where he would dump it afterward. He’d brought along rubber gloves for the main event. Until then he was careful not to touch anything so as not to leave prints anywhere.

“Everything go okay? Where’s Lamar?” Bud asked.

“We have problems after we pick kid up. Cops is watching.”

“Shit. Are you serious? Did they follow you here?”

“Not to worry. I have brain.”

“So what happened?”

“We arrange to meet kid like you say, in front of subway stop near Hunter College.”

“Yeah, because it’s crowded there, but you’re not too far from the bridge.”

“Was good choice for location. But we get there, is like five sedans with dark windows.”

“Shit.”

“Cops.”

“Yeah. So what’d you do?”

“We drive, not stop. We call kid on cell number you give us, tell him get on subway and go to Grand Central instead. We wait for him there, outside.”

“Smart.”

“But by the time he come out, we see sedans again.”

“So he’s definitely talking, the little prick.”

Pavel’s lips twitched into the semblance of a smile. “He pay for that already, believe me.”

“Okay. So? How’d you lose ’em?”

“In Russia, man I work for, he teach me drive good. I know.”

“You just…”

“Go around block here, cut in front of cars there. They trying to hide so we don’t see them, but I know they are there, so I make move. Is not difficult.”

“But where’s Lamar?” Bud repeated.

“Even though we lose them, is not good use same car to go to airport. So we pull car into garage here. Lamar go to get another car.”

“All good. But you know, if the feds were watching before, they’ll be looking for you at the airport.”

“Is no problem. They look for three men together. So Lamar and I go separately. Kid by then we are done with, he is not with us. They will be tricked.”

Bud looked at his watch. “You should get going already.”

He was sending them to San Juan as if everything were normal. He didn’t want Jay suspecting anything too soon. Besides, the feds would find a way to follow the trail of the purported drug deal. They’d run off to Puerto Rico, too, leaving Bud free to take care of business here in New York.

“You handle this kid now?” Pavel asked dubiously. Pavel underestimated Bud. They all did. It didn’t bother him; in fact, he preferred it that way. Put him at an advantage.

“I’m just waiting for Jay. He should be here any minute, and then I’m leaving. What happens next is his decision,” Bud said.

“Of course.”

“I’m serious, Pavel. Jay’s gonna be fucking pissed if you miss that flight. We have a shipment to deal with.”

“I finish one minute. They don’t give you nothing eat on airplanes these days.”

Bud looked down at Trevor. A shame, all these bright young lives getting snuffed out before their time. But that’s what happened when you fucked around with people’s livelihoods.

Pavel crumpled the soggy deli paper into a ball and tossed it aside. He stood up, rubbing his greasy hands on his jeans.

“Did the kid say anything?” Bud asked.

“Yeah, of course, right away he give up that he is working with prosecutor.”

“I’ll call you with further instructions once you’re down there. You don’t call me, understand? And whatever you do, don’t call Jay. He’s chilling on this one, and he doesn’t want any paper trail.”

“I know.”

Pavel pulled on his bulky leather coat and headed for the exit. Only after he heard the door slam did Bud draw back his foot and kick Trevor in the head hard enough to wake him up.

“Aagh,” Trevor grunted, coming to but having trouble opening his swollen eyes.

Bud looked down at him with interest. It was funny, how little he minded the violence. Or, more accurately, how much he enjoyed it. With the neighborhood he was from, and hanging out with Jay all these years, he’d seen a lot of depraved, fucked-up things but had been careful to keep his hands clean. Recently, with his new goal, that had to change. He found he stepped comfortably into the role of brutalizer. Like that girl he had at home, who was still, fortunately, alive. He understood all the stories now, the ones where some local man in a desolate town kept a woman chained to the wall of his shed. He’d systematically torture her to death over a long period of time while keeping up his everyday routine. Bud saw how easily something like that could happen. Having Carmen tied up in his closet seemed natural to him now. Taking her out and terrorizing her had become simply something interesting to look forward to as he went about the rest of his day.

Trevor succeeded in opening his eyes, registering Bud’s face with obvious surprise.

“You really fucked up, my friend,” Bud said, smiling.

Trevor licked his split lip, trying to speak.

“Just a second,” Bud said. He went to the bathroom, concealed behind a flimsy plywood door in the corner of the space. There were no cups. But rummaging in the trash, he found an empty plastic Coke bottle and filled it with water from the rusty tap, using a crumpled paper towel to handle everything. He came back and poured a small amount of water into Trevor’s mouth. The kid looked pathetically grateful.

“I understand you’re friendly with Melanie Vargas. That’s a big problem for me and some friends of mine,” Bud said.

“She forced me,” Trevor managed, wincing with pain as he spoke. “She arrested me for selling X.”

“We all have our reasons for what we do, Trevor. But we all have to suffer the consequences when we make poor choices.”

The kid started to snivel, wet snot mixed with blood dripping from his broken nose. The sight only served to fill Bud with anticipation. He drew the rubber gloves from his jeans pocket and pulled them on with a snap. Then he took the nine-iron from the leather golf bag. Jay had danced away from the law so many times that he thought he was invincible. He never even bothered to clean his weapons, which gave Bud a golden opportunity now. This golf club was covered with Jay’s prints and soaked with the blood-and DNA-of his last victim, that cross-dressing club rat. Bud could kill the Leonard kid with it now and hand Jay to the feds in a nice, neat package, looking good for both murders. So Bud could truly relax in his tropical paradise when the time came. Not too long now either.

Trevor was watching Bud’s every move with eyes like saucers. Either the kid was scared shitless or he was completely incapacitated by the beating Pavel had given him, because he never even tried to get up. It continued to amaze Bud the way people let you take advantage of them. He’d massacre this kid without meeting a single flicker of resistance.

He walked over and stomped his left foot down square in the middle of Trevor’s chest, eliciting a shocked grunt, then raised the nine-iron in a perfect arc, bringing it down fast and hard, stopping a millimeter shy of Trevor’s skull. The kid was sobbing now, eyes fixed on the head of the golf club, which bore sticky clumps of blood and tissue from its last victim.

“I’m sorry, dude. I’m sorry, sorry, sorry. Ple-ease!”

“Remorse is bullshit, Trevor. Doesn’t mean jack unless you deliver on it. Luckily, there’s something you can do for me.”