The Last Family

27

Gravel crunched under the dark Cadillac Brougham, its running lights burning orange, as it floated out of the fog like a manta ray. It slid up the truck ramp, swung out onto the dock, and pulled into the shadow of a rusting freighter. The freighter was a ghost vessel, abandoned for the evening, its crew scattered about the bars of the upper French Quarter. The car stopped, and after a few minutes the rear door opened as a single figure got out.

Lallo Estevez carried himself with the aplomb of an aristocrat. He wore his hair in a rolling silver mane. He had a pencil-thin mustache and wore heavy black-framed glasses. The all-weather coat hung shroudlike from his shoulders, and the gold signet ring with his ancient family crest had doubled as a sealing-wax stamp two hundred years before. He thought he heard something behind him and gave the Cadillac a proprietary glance, lit a blond Dominican cigar with his gold Dunhill lighter, then turned and walked up the gangplank to the deck. He thought the vantage point might be more advantageous from that altitude. The thin soles of his loafers slid against the damp boards, slick leather against the light coating of oil and beads of condensation. He stood at the top of the walk and looked up and down the deck. The broker could barely make out the window to the pilothouse through the fog. Not that anyone was in there. Privacy had been arranged with a word to the captain. The ship belonged to Lallo’s coffee company. He looked around trying to spot the man with his rifle. No matter.

Lallo spent ten minutes standing and puffing on the cigar and listening for any foreign sound. As usual he wasn’t armed. He had never liked weapons personally, though he had fenced at college in England, and he was a fair clay-target shot. He had never had to handle a weapon in violence. As long as there was poverty, there would be those willing to do anything for a TV set and a few dollars. He checked his Omega. Ten past the time Martin had set for the meeting.

Lallo wasn’t nervous about the shooter, except he hoped the shot was clean. Sometimes these men weren’t as concerned with what was behind the target as the target itself. And he hoped the CIA hadn’t decided to end their uneasy partnership after all these years. He could describe Spivey’s build and his voice but had never looked into his eyes. It was better not to see too much. The only other time he had met with him, Spivey had been wearing a baseball cap and dark glasses, a thick mustache and matching wig, neither of which looked convincing or had meant to be.

“Marty, where the fucking hell are you?” he whispered to himself.

“Such language.” The voice shocked him like a cup of cold water tossed in his face, and Lallo was frightened to find himself standing two feet away from the author of the words. A stranger. He thought he heard the car door close, and he prayed the men in the car behind him would stay put. “Martin? Is this you?” Lallo had not seen Martin face-to-face since the operation.

“Not hardly,” the man said, raising his chin. “Behind you.”

Martin was indeed there when Lallo turned. The Latin broker almost had trouble drawing a steady breath. How Martin had come up the gangplank without rocking it, and so soundlessly, Lallo couldn’t imagine. He was dressed in a black turtleneck and jeans. His face was smeared with something dark and moist. Lallo didn’t recognize him at first. And not because of the face paint-the face was vastly altered from the one he had last seen, years before.

“How did you do that?” he said, trying to inject levity in his tone. “You took ten years off my life. And this one”-he nodded at the other man-“who looks strangely familiar to me, I must say.” He made the sign of the cross and put his hands on Martin’s shoulders.

“You’ve met before,” Martin said. “Years ago. In our training facility in Colombia.”

“I see. Now, Marty, we meet and speak face-to-face again like old friends.”

“Well, my friend, I delivered my end on schedule, and we agreed on a price up front,” Martin said in flawless Spanish. “Weren’t you pleased with the quality of the merchandise? All you had to do was connect the Semtex and set the clocks. Sweet as it gets, and so any fool becomes a professional bomber. Pablo is having a cash-flow problem, you said?”

“Si,” Lallo said. Then he reverted to English, looking from Martin to the other man as he spoke. In his mind he prayed that the shooter waited and got both of them. The additional man was a problem, but one Ramon could handle easily. “A small problem getting his money moved around. Very temporary, he assures me. He moves from Guatemala to Colombia, and he is never where I look for him. Communication is a terrible problem, but as history has shown us, he is always good for it.”

“I saw where his cousin and brother met with an accident.”

“Police bullets, very bad for the digestion.” Lallo shrugged and laughed. “And that didn’t help with these troubles.”

“That was just a few weeks ago. I’ve been owed my money for six months now. Am I some worrisome dog who sneaked under the table?”

Lallo opened his arms expansively. “Oh, no! You are like my own family! I never thought that!”

“Still, Uncle Lallo, I haven’t been paid. In the old days I was always paid, and well. Information I gave saved many lives in Pablo’s organization. And millions upon millions of dollars in merchandise that would have been lost to seizure.”

Martin smiled, but the smile was not a pleasant thing to see.

“But, my friend,” Lallo said, “I have brought you your money, after all. That is why I wanted to meet out here this time of night. To pay you what Pablo owes you. He told me to wait… but I said no, Martin Fletcher is my dear friend, and I will pay him. If he doesn’t like that”-Lallo put his fingers to his chest-“too bad. It’s not your problem. I’m paying you out of my pocket, and I must collect later. You have changed so much! You look so many years younger. Handsome!” Lallo’s eyes related that the familiar voice coming from this stranger was disconcerting. He tried not to look at the warehouse roofline, but he did, just fleetingly.

“Oh, Lallo, you make me feel guilty.” Martin smiled sheepishly. “And I wasn’t certain I could trust you any longer.”

Lallo patted him on the shoulders, and the nervous smile grew larger. “It’s nothing.”

“Where is it? The money?”

“In the car. You come and I will pay you now. All this fog is like vampire movie, no?” Lallo laughed.

Martin smiled. “Blood from the neck.” He laughed. “In the car, you say?”

“Yes. Come.”

Martin walked behind Lallo until they made the dock and on to the car. Lallo was nervous. What about the other man? Will he be shot at the same time?

He opened the door slowly and said, “Your money is in there, Marty.”

As he pulled the door open, he stepped back so Ramon, the man in the rear seat, would have a clean shot with the double-barreled shotgun-and the other man a shot from the warehouse roof. But as he stood there braced for the explosions, nothing happened. Martin Fletcher stared at Lallo, who stood holding the door handle with his left hand. Martin waited a full thirty seconds, eye to eye with Lallo, before he bent down and reached into the open door, grabbed an ankle, and tugged a limp body from the car to the dock, where it landed with a squishing sound not unlike that of a foot being pulled from the mud. The left side of the man’s face had exploded out. There was a small hole in his left temple, and the window he had been seated against was perforated with tiny cracks that formed a spiderweb of shattered lens radiating from a small hole.

“Imagine my surprise when I found Ramon here! Was this sorry sack of shit supposed to give me my money, Lallo? Or was he supposed to give me something else? I have to tell you the money wasn’t inside the car-only this.” Marty reached behind him, under his jacket, and pulled a pistol complete with a silencer from his belt. “And a shotgun. So is the money in the trunk? All I see in there is two dead pieces of shit, your driver and a dead pistolero of dubious lineage. But money? No, I don’t see my money.” Martin’s face was twitching, the anger floating from him. Lallo prayed for the man on the roof to shoot and end this. He scanned the roofline of his warehouse.

“The man up there had to leave early,” Martin said.

Lallo’s face melted toward his tie, and his lips trembled like his knees. “Marty, they made me do this! They threatened my family!” Lallo beat at his chest. Don’t give up the spooks unless you have to. “This was Ramon’s order from Pablo! That evil man was his personal assassin. I’m glad you killed this pig, because he was forcing me into this. They threatened my family. Even my grandbabies.”

Martin pulled a knife from his ankle and reached down and worked on the dead hit man with the blade. Lallo retched deeply when he saw what Martin was doing.

Martin finished, stood, and Lallo was horrified at the sight of his blood-covered hands, the knife reduced to a darkly wet conical shape extending from the right fist. “I knew this man Ramon, Lallo. A student as poor as this shouldn’t be sent against his teacher. He looks awfully good in a tie, though.”

Lallo could hardly breathe. He hoped his heart wouldn’t explode.

“What do I smell?” Martin said as he sniffed at the air loudly. “Shit? You ruined a thousand-dollar suit? Are you so afraid of me, who is like your own son? I thought we were friends. What, fifteen years I’ve known you? We have had some times, Lallo. You introduced me to my love, Angela. You were to be godfather to my baby, Macon. You know,” he said softly, “the anniversary of his death is coming up very soon.”

“Please, Marty. I can help you. I can get you almost a million dollars. Now, tonight. I wanted to bring you your money, but they would not allow it. I swear.”

“Who put you up to this? Perez?”

“Not Perez. A man named Spivey.”

“Spivey? Who is he?”

“A company man, I think. He got Ramon and the man on the roof.”

“Lallo, I find it difficult to trust you in light of all this.” He spread his bloody hands eloquently. “Someone who forgets who I am… what I do? I can’t be killed by fools like these. I’m bulletproof, Lallo. I can smell the breath of my enemies at a thousand yards. I can see their nostrils flare, their eyes move. I can hear their thoughts, I can feel them, Lallo.”

“There is a million dollars in my office-in the place under my desk. You pull the rug back and there it is. I give it to you. Just let me go. We forget this and stay friends. For Angela and Macon’s sake.”

“Angela is with the dead, Lallo. Don’t speak of her here among this shit.” With the dripping blade he indicated the pistolero. “Here’s the deal, Lallo. You are right that we are good friends. So climb into the trunk, and I’ll send my pal to your office to get the cash. If the money is there, we can say good-bye as friends.”

“Excellent,” Lallo said, nodding rapidly. “Combination is three-two-four-four-five-oh. Here are the keys to my office in Place St. Charles.” Lallo pulled a set of keys from his pocket and handed them to Martin.

“Security?” Martin asked.

“The system has a forty-second delay after the door opens. Keypad is on the other side of the door, and it is set for one-one-one-one. Then we say it’s even?” Lallo’s face was running with sweat. “I will explain these bodies.”

“We’ll just toss them into the river. So I can forgive you for the money. The other cash in your safe I will put to good use. Fund an orphanage, maybe. You know how much I love children.”

“I deserve your disdain because I am a weakling.” Lallo frowned. “I trust you, Marty. You have always been a man of your word. The money is there. I swear on my mother’s eyes.”

“All we have is our honor, my friend,” Martin said as he opened the driver’s door and reached over the dead man for the keys. He walked around and opened the trunk and Lallo climbed in. He looked up at Martin, a frightened bird in a dark nest. “I trust you, Martin. I trust you,” he said. He watched as the other man joined Martin and stood just behind him.

“And I trust you. Haven’t you seen my face? You are the only man on earth, aside from my compatriot there, who knows what I look like. We must trust each other. Watch your hands, Lallo. Will you be comfortable in there?”

“Yes.” He nodded rapidly. “I will be just fine, Martin. And your friend-Steiner, Kurt Steiner. Of course,” Lallo said. “Now I remember him. It was nice to see you again, Mr. Steiner.” Lallo stared at the other man.

Kurt Steiner nodded formally. “My pleasure, Senor Estevez. Maybe we will meet again under more pleasant circumstances.”

“I’ll put in some holes so you can breathe better,” Martin said, taking the shotgun from Kurt and swinging it up to his shoulder. He aimed it at Lallo’s chest. Lallo jerked his arm up and covered his eyes. Martin shrugged, raised the barrel to the open trunk lid, and fired both barrels, the pellets punching through the sheet metal and shattering both the rear and front windshields en route. The short gun’s discharges sounded like dynamite going off; the sound overflowed the small trunk. Lallo was sure his ears were bleeding as he pulled his arm away from his eyes. There might have been some relief in his expression, but very little. He was a man separated from his Maker by the thinnest of threads, and they were being held by a psychopath.

“Sorry about your pants,” Martin said as he closed the trunk gently until the hydraulic mechanism caught and sealed it tight. Martin put the shotgun on top of the car, grabbed the pistolero ’s legs, and dragged him to the side of the dock, leaving a wide, dark trail. The body of the short, thin sniper from the roof was now lying beside the Cadillac, having been recovered by Kurt Steiner. The rifle he had been carrying was tossed into the water without a second thought. The sniper’s throat was opened like a mouth. Martin reached into the slit in the man’s throat and pulled his tongue out as he had the pistolero ’s. Then, after admiring the thick purple necktie, he rolled the would-be assassin off into the Mississippi River. Martin and Kurt maneuvered Ramon to the side and pushed him in as well. They watched him float away, shoulders above the waterline, for a few seconds before he sank.

“See that, Kurt? Proves a very important point.”

“What point, Marty?”

“Shit doesn’t always float.”

Martin walked back to the driver’s open door, reached inside, started it, and then put the Cadillac into drive. He cocked his head slightly and watched the car roll slowly toward the ship’s stern, gathering speed as it went. It rolled off the pier at an angle, the front passenger quarter hitting first, and sank in a fury of bubbles. Lallo’s muted screams escaped the holes in the trunk as the car bobbed and the rear end moved along the pier, pulled along by the current. Then it slipped under for good, leaving a momentary churning of bubbles that moved downriver.

“I didn’t touch you, Lallo, old friend,” he said. Then he tilted his head back and filled the night with his deep, black laughter.

Martin changed into clothes he had in the trunk of the Caprice. He strolled out of the parking garage off Canal Place, crossed Canal Street, and walked to St. Charles Avenue, where he stopped to look at the displays in the windows of Rubenstein Bros. He slowed to savor the elegance of Italian suits, linen shirts, and sports coats as he walked toward Lallo’s building. The expensive clothes appealed to Martin. He wondered why he had not worn such suits before now. He thought he would adopt a personality with a sense of style and taste. After the smoke cleared on this deal, if he was still alive, he’d come back to this store and outfit himself for just such a life-a new identity. Maybe he would rent an elegant house here for a few months and relax.

By the time Martin passed the final shop window, his thoughts were back to his business. His reflections on fine clothing and a house uptown no longer existed; they were as completely forgotten as the bodies he had slipped into tike Mississippi River an hour earlier. His mind had locked on his errand again.

Lallo’s office was located on one of the top floors of Place St. Charles on St. Charles Avenue, a block uptown from the French Quarter. His family owned coffee plantations, and he was officially a coffee broker. Lallo’s brother had introduced him to the money to be made in the powder trade on the cleaning end, and with the friendship of certain American-government accommodations it had seemed perfectly safe. Money shuffling for both ends meant a percentage of the gross. A nice pad for a man with so many businesses set up all around the world and so many accounts in so many places. Lallo had banking relationships in the Bahamas, New Orleans, Miami, New York, Panama, Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras, London, Tokyo, and Paris.

Martin slipped easily into the building and up the stairs without being seen. He used Lallo’s keys to open first the receptionist’s office and then Lallo’s. There was an alarm, but it wasn’t on.

The office was large and expensively decorated. The desk, the entertainment center complete with leather couches, and the conference table were set on a carpeted platform-a platform built expressly to hide the floor safe under Lallo’s desk. The combination worked perfectly. Martin stared in at the blocks of cash. He roughly counted the money, using the desk to stack the bundles.

Pablo would know Martin had killed his most valuable money man and taken many times what was owed him. And the drug king would spend the time when he wasn’t looking over his shoulder for the Colombian army, instead looking over his shoulder for Martin. Martin knew he would haunt Pablo’s dreams, because Pablo had seen him at work, had hired him for the wettest jobs he’d had-work where sophistication was necessary, where the target was covered over in security. The trouble with Latin muscle was that there was no finesse. Cut throats, sloppy torture, like the raping of proud, macho men by lesser men, machine guns, bombs, and chain saws. Martin believed that the Colombians and the Peruvians were pie-faced Indians without the imagination God gave frogs. Inferior beings. Martin knew this because he had trained them-or tried to-but they were, for the most part, ruled by their emotions. Most men were inferior to Martin. Most men had emotions to deal with. Martin had exorcised all but a few.

Martin put the money into a plastic garbage bag he had brought along and went back out into the night with the cash slung over his shoulder.

Back in the parking garage he handed blocks of the money to his comrade. “One more big job before we close this one, Kurt.”

“No sweat,” Steiner said.

“There can be no mistakes. You have everything you need. The package is waiting for you.”

“I understand, Martin. I’ve done lots of shit harder than this cakewalk.”

“You have never had a more important job in your life. The absence of danger may give you a false sense of safety. Remember, you are the only one I would trust with this.”

Martin embraced the man and hugged him tightly. The killers put their heads together.

“I won’t fail you,” Steiner said.

“Go,” Martin whispered. “Go, now, and make me proud.”

Martin watched as Kurt stepped from the car and made his way to the elevator. He knew that the younger man was in awe of him. It wasn’t a physical love, but a worshipful love, a reverence of the student for the master. Martin put two pills on his tongue and swallowed them without water. “Of course he won’t fail me. Because I’d cut out his fucking heart if he did.” He smiled at the thought that soon he would be traveling lighter than he ever had before. After this was done, he would have no further use for Kurt Steiner.