The Wrong Man

61

Patrick Cahill and his partner, Dwyer, squatted down in the small walkway between Jason Kolarich’s townhouse and the townhouse next door. It was past one A.M. now, and they were tired and cold, having sat in this spot for the better part of seven hours now. But the later it got, the more likely he was to show up any minute.

They were lucky, too. This was a uniquely advantageous hiding place. It was right next to the garage, it was poorly lit, and it was such a tiny space-no more than five feet wide-that Kolarich almost assuredly wouldn’t even think to look for them.

And the neighbor, whoever he or she or they were, didn’t have a window on the ground or even the second floor that overlooked this walkway. There was a window directly above them on the third floor, but the occupant would have to go out of his way to stick his head out the window and look all the way down at the walkway, and even then the visibility would be relatively poor.

They’d purchased thermal underwear and black hooded sweatshirts and extra pairs of socks, and they wore all of them now. It was cold regardless. The temperature was probably in the teens. But they were doing okay. Their biggest problem was that their legs were getting cramped. Every half-hour, one of them walked up and down the walkway between the houses to keep himself limber.

Above them, for the first time, they heard the voices of the neighbors. Muted sounds, presumably coming from the third floor and traveling through the window to their ears. Dwyer nudged Cahill and they listened.

“Disgusting. That’s disgusting!”

It was a woman’s voice, shouting.

“You’re overreacting!” a man called out.

They heard the scraping and shifting of wood, the unmistakable sound of the window opening directly above them on the third floor. Cahill and Dwyer braced themselves and tucked in their chins, froze in their crouch, doing their best to conceal themselves. But they were probably okay, Cahill thought. These people were just arguing. Someone would have to look straight down, three stories, into the dark, to see them crouched down.

“It’s not that big a deal,” the man called out. “Calm down.”

“You want me to be calm? I’ll be calm when it’s out of my house.”

“Honey, listen!”

“No!”

Another sound, something close, right by the window. Cahill looked up just in time to see something at the window, maybe a-a bucket? It hit them in one sudden, heavy splash, so hard it knocked them into each other and to the asphalt.

“What the fuck-” Dwyer began, but Cahill squeezed his arm.

“Shut up!” Cahill ordered in a harsh whisper. “If you can hear her, she can hear you.”

“You don’t think this was on purpose?” he whispered back.

Cahill had no idea. But it sounded like a domestic dispute.

“There!” came the woman’s voice from the window. “It’s gone now!”

“You threw it out?”

“I sure did. And that better be the last time I see that in my house!”

Was this-oil? He could hardly see his hand in front of his face so he couldn’t tell-he didn’t dare taste it-but that smell.

“It’s fucking motor oil!” Dwyer hissed.

“Keep your voice down, God damn it.”

It was oil. That lady had just dumped a bucket of motor oil on them.

“What the hell is going on?” Dwyer whispered. “Why the fuck did she dump motor-”

“Shh. I don’t fucking know. Keep your mouth shut.”

Above them, they heard the man and woman continue to argue.

“Why are you always getting on my case?”

“Why are you such a slob?”

Then they heard the familiar grinding and whining of gears as Kolarich’s garage door began to lift. Cahill grabbed Dwyer and motioned to him. They both heard it. They moved back against the brick wall of Kolarich’s garage and saw the headlights of a truck bounce as the truck came off the street and onto Kolarich’s driveway.

Cahill was still stunned, and now everything was happening at once. He didn’t have time to worry about the oil covering his head and shoulders. Jason Kolarich had arrived home.

“Game time.”

But the truck didn’t move farther up the driveway. It stayed back near the sidewalk, the headlights trained toward the garage.

Why?

Cahill and Dwyer didn’t move, didn’t breathe, for a long time.

“You think he spotted us?” Dwyer whispered.

“Don’t know.” Cahill was still in a daze from the oil dumping on him. He wasn’t entirely sure what the hell was going on right now. Did that lady deliberately dump oil on them?

At the base of Kolarich’s driveway, where the truck remained idled, the driver’s side door opened, and the driver exited and sprinted west along the sidewalk, quickly out of their view.

“What the-”

And then Cahill heard another sound from above. He looked up and was hit smack in the face with a heavy powder that invaded his nose and mouth and caused him to gag.

He fell back against the wall, Dwyer on top of him.

Sand, he thought, as he coughed.

She had just dumped a bucket of sand on them.

“Fuck!” Dwyer shouted. “What the fuck!” He jumped to his feet. “Let’s go get this asshole!” he shouted. He first pointed the gun up at the window, but hesitated, unsure of where to direct his fury. Then he turned around and ran toward Kolarich’s driveway.

Cahill didn’t know what the hell was happening. More than half his body was covered with motor oil and now sand particles were embedded in it.

Dwyer had already begun to run down the driveway after Kolarich. He should have known better. They’d both seen Kolarich run before. There was no way they were going to catch him, wherever it was he’d run. Cahill coughed again, spat, and got to his feet.

What the hell had just happened? Were those neighbors working with Kolarich The truck, he thought. They could use Kolarich’s truck, which was idling in the driveway, and give chase.

When Cahill stumbled to the driveway, he found Dwyer standing still, staring at the truck, his gun at his side.

Dwyer looked totally ridiculous, doused in thick black oil and then with a healthy coat of sand on top of it. Cahill assumed he looked equally preposterous. Were they-where was Kolarich?

Dwyer pointed at the truck. Only then did Cahill realize that this wasn’t a vehicle that Jason Kolarich owned.

This was their Ford Explorer.

“Fuck me,” he mumbled, as he approached the truck.

Every window had been busted out completely. The paint was scratched badly. It looked as if words had been scratched into the paint, but the lighting wasn’t that good, so it was hard to make out.

“What in the motherfuck is going on?” Dwyer said.

Neither of them knew where to start with all of this. Cahill looked back at the neighbor’s townhome. Hard to believe that it was just a coincidence that they dumped all that shit on them but if not, it meant they were on to them, and Dwyer started marching toward the neighbor’s townhouse. Cahill grabbed his arm. “We need to get the fuck out of here, Dwyer.”

“They’re in there. I fucking know it, and I’m going-”

“Then they’ve called the cops, you moron. We have to get out of here.”

Dwyer couldn’t bring himself to disagree. Things hadn’t gone so well up to now, and there was no reason to expect their luck would improve by sticking around.

Cahill got behind the wheel, Dwyer the passenger seat. Dwyer was unhappy to discover that he had sat in a pile of broken glass. So had Cahill, but he wasn’t going to delay their exit over that.

“All right, Kolarich, score one for you,” he mumbled. “But I’m going to find you, and when I do, I’m going to cut your fucking head off.”

He put the car in reverse, backed out of the driveway, and headed west. Who knows, maybe their luck would change and they’d see Kolarich running Headlights popped on a car behind them, and then flashing lights on the dome overhead.

A cop car. A fucking cop car.

“Fucking Kolarich,” Cahill said. “I’m going to rip out your eyes and piss in the sockets.”

“You’re stopping?” Dwyer asked.

“Do we take our chances?” Cahill wondered. He had to make a quick decision here. He looked over at Dwyer, draped in black oil and brown sand. He looked like a fudge sundae.

“Let’s do it,” he decided. He gunned the engine and started flying west down the street.

Then another cop car, with flashing lights, turned onto the street from the other direction and came toward them.

“Fuck.” Cahill hit the brakes and threw the car angrily into Park. He was cut off. This was a narrow street with parked cars lining each side, and now he had squad cars at his front and rear. Could he and Dwyer win a shootout with the police? It was possible. They were surely better shots than these mutts. But backup would be called in, hell, neighbors would call 911, and even if they managed to take out the four officers, there was no physical way they could get their car free and drive off. They’d have to leave it behind, and they’d be the most wanted men in the state. They’d be drawing all kinds of attention to themselves and, more important, to the Circle.

He had to keep his eye on the prize here. He was needed a week from now. He’d trained for more than a year and he wasn’t going to miss it.

“Fuck,” he said again.

From both the front and rear, the squad cars activated their searchlights into his vehicle.

“Turn off your engine and put your hands on your head,” one of the officers called out through his speaker.

“Do it,” Cahill said, gritting his teeth so hard he felt physical pain. He killed the engine and put his hands on top of his greasy, grimy head.

He looked over at Dwyer, who was fitting his fingers around his gun.

“Don’t be an idiot, Dwyer. We have a job to do on December seventh. Just let this happen and Manning will bail us out.”

Dwyer thought a moment, then complied. He reached down and placed his weapon on the floorboard, like Cahill had done previously when he started driving. Then he put his hands on his head.

A pair of cops from each direction approached the vehicle, their weapons drawn, Maglites directed toward the interior of the vehicle. They took their time, walking around each side of the vehicle.

“Do you have firearms in the vehicle?” called out one of them, his own weapon trained on Cahill. “Do you have firearms in the vehicle?”

“Why would you say that, Officer?” Cahill said in a less than respectful tone. Cahill was not a big fan of law enforcement, or government in general.

“Well, for one thing, it’s scratched on the rear panel of your vehicle. It says, ‘We have guns in here.’ Right next to ‘Fuck you, cops.’”

Cahill closed his eyes. Fucking Kolarich. He was going to rip out his tongue and feed it to him.

“You’re going to keep those hands on your head, and you’re going to slide out of the vehicle.” An officer on each side opened the car doors. “Slide out right now, each of you.”

They complied, though it wasn’t easy with their hands on their heads.

“What is that you got on you?” the cop asked. “What the hell have you boys been doing?”

Cahill put his hands against the car and spread his legs.

“Sightseeing,” he said. “I love this city.”

With the car bathed in light from every fucking direction, Cahill could now read what had been scratched on the driver’s side panel: We are assassins.

“Weapon on the floorboard, driver’s side,” said one of the cops.

“Weapon on the passenger floor, too,” said another.

An officer pulled Cahill’s hands behind him and slipped cuffs over his wrists.

“You look like you’ve been tarred and feathered,” one of them said.

“You look like something out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon,” another opined. The threat now contained, the two suspects now in handcuffs, the cops began to enjoy themselves.

“‘Die… fucking… pigs.’ ‘Cops… suck… dick.’” One of the cops was doing a walk-around with his flashlight, reading all the messages scratched into the Explorer’s paint.

“Someone stole the car,” said Cahill.

“And then gave it back to you? They must be nice car thieves.”

They popped the rear of the car. Cahill already knew what they would find. There were rifles and knives and rope and a body bag.

One of the cops got close to Cahill’s ear. “Whatever the hell you boys have been up to,” he said, “you’re in a lot of trouble.”