Filed to story: Return of the Reaper Story
A pyre for Marcia.
They left the Roths’ now-former address, and the tony neighborhood they’d called home for thirty years, for a golden strip lined with shopping marts, car dealerships and standalone stores.
The car made its way east in fits and starts, stopping at every Walgreens, CVS, Target and Walmart. The car would park in the fire lane while the doctor would write a prescription for various Schedule Three drugs. Tylox, Oxycontin, Empirin, Fiorinal, Ativan, Halcion, Librium, Valium, Xanax, Amytal, Nembutal and others in generic and brand names. His captors were knowledgeable of doses and legal prescription amounts.
The two men took turns entering the drug stores and returning to the car after fifteen and twenty minute waits. The big man did not want to talk but Jordan found the smaller of the two a willing conversationalist.
The smaller man, the pretty boy with the predator eyes, explained that they were using a collection of credit cards under various names to make the purchases. So, the pick-ups were essentially free to them. A fortune in forbidden prescriptive narcotics and depressants worth many times their market value in the right places. This was all a bonus above what they were being paid for their current assignment.
The doctor wasn’t certain if they meant to keep him alive for his surgical skills or merely until his prescription pad was empty. This couldn’t go on for long. Even now the fire would have been discovered. Jordan and Marcia Roth would be feared dead in the fire. Was there an apparatus to shut down his status as a qualified scrip writer once it was determined that he was either missing or deceased?
He took some comfort from them allowing him to pack a bag with a few days’ worth of clothes. Of course, they might have done this to give him a false sense of his own security; to make him compliant. These were heartless men, ruthless men. But they were professionals. Their every action branded them as such. In that way he felt a kinship with them: men skilled at an unpleasant task that required certain skills and a high level of expert detachment to perform. Like killing a fellow human being or sawing into the skull of a living subject.
They were parked before a Target. Jordan sat quiet in the back seat with the bigger man munching a protein bar behind the wheel. The smaller man exited hurriedly and took the passenger seat. He spoke to the driver in Russian. A brief exchange followed. The big man nodded his head toward the doctor.
Jordan held his breath.
“Find a motel,” the smaller man said.
Jordan exhaled.
They were keeping him for now.
Tobias Garrett shanked his ball into the trees. He muttered a curse as he started to hike after it.
“Rotten luck,” a member of his party called after him in accented English.
He was handicapping himself so as to not show up his guests. They were piss-poor golfers but he dearly wanted their business. No trouble falling on his ass a few times to give them the win if it meant getting the fat contract they offered.
His cell tingled in his pocket as he was using his driver to part the ferns in search of his little white Titleist. It wasn’t a number he recognized.
“Garrett. Lone Star Solutions. How can I make your world a safer place?”
“That shrapnel still giving you a hitch in your getalong?”
Isaac Kane. Holy shit. Kane was identifying himself using a reference from a shared adventure in Manila. An RPG brought down their chopper. Garrett remembered little after that except that Kane was always there, always by him, until they were safe back aboard the Stennis.
“Only in the cold weather, brother.”
“Can we talk, Tobey?”
“This is a business line. I can call you back in two hours. The number on my display good for you?”
“Yeah. For a few days. Talk to you then.”
The call ended.
Tobias hacked away at the ball to free it from the rough, taking four swings, and still came to the green one point behind the best player in his foursome. Arabs were shit at golf. Tobias sank the putt to take the hole.
Isaac pulled in at truck stops along the way back to Tampa. He collected throwaway cell phones paying cash every time for the phones and calling cards.
The parting from Merry had been hard. It might have been better if she’d cried. She held it back, not letting him see how his leaving was tearing her up. He looked back once in the rearview. Merry turned to bury her head in Joyce’s shoulder. Gunny stood by waving.
A cell buzzed and lit up on the console by him. It was the phone he’d assigned to Tobey Garrett. He touched the tab on his earbud cord.
“Thanks for getting back to me. We’re secure.”
“Am I going to have to throw this phone in the lake after I hang up?”
“You might have to find a volcano to drop it into.”
“Shit,” Tobey hissed in his ear.
“I need intel. You’re private sector now. Is that going to be a problem?”
“I still have my resources. It’s what I trade on. What do you need?”
“A gang in Tampa. Family name Kolisnyk. K-O-L-I-S-N-Y-K. They go by Collins too. Not sure if that’s a legal name change.”
“Shit fuck, Kane. These are Russians?”
“Ukrainian. Same difference.”
“Mafiya or Vor?”
“They’re Vor.”
“You caught a small break, brother. They might wait to cut your balls off until afteryou’re dead. How can I help you?”
“The usual. A way in. A profile. Holdings. History. Organization, Associations. Broad strokes.”
“You working private sector yourself? Is this freelance?”
“One time thing. I’m not printing business cards.”
“Where have I heard that before? I don’t need to know anything else to know that you’re in over your head.”
“Can you do it, Tobey?”