Tod Goldberg - The End Game

“You’d be surprised,” I said.

Alex shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe. I’m surprised you’re in the extortion business now, so there’s that.”

“You do what you have to do,” I said. “We all have to eat. Luckily, I happen to like what I do, just like you.”

“You like to kill women and children now, too?”

“That’s my job,” Fiona said. “Michael doesn’t have the stomach for it.”

Alex took that in. “Oh, I doubt that,” he said after a time. “There are children in some developing nations who run screaming when they see a pair of sunglasses and a nice smile.”

“What are we doing here?” I said.

“Three adults having a conversation,” Alex said.

“Your boss know you’re here?”

“He’s not my boss,” Alex said. “Just a consulting job. Something to pass the time. Keep my friends employed. Like I said. I found myself in Miami and needed some work.”

“You just found yourself here?”

“Well, no,” he said. “I came here to kill you. Brought my whole team.”

Fiona nodded at me. “See, Michael, I told you he was polite.”

“Who sent you?” I said.

“Who didn’t? There are open contracts on you all across the world. I figured I’d claim them all.”

“And yet here I am.”

“We could have taken you out a dozen times,” he said. “You don’t exactly put yourself in the best company. Cut-rate arms dealers. Bank robbers. Forgers. Russians. That whack job Larry. Not exactly the Dirty Dozen.”

“You know Larry?” I said.

“I did some work with him in Kosovo,” Alex said.

“Was this before or after he was dead?”

“After,” he said. “But he’s one who’s done it right. Sticks by his principles. Makes a good living. You, you’re not even using your skills anymore. Just a petty crook half the time. And this business with the Ottones. The Michael Westen I heard about all these years would have put Dinino down for what he’s doing with that girl, wouldn’t have even bothered to extort from him. It’s disgraceful, if you want my opinion, but like you said, we all have to eat.”

There was a part of me that wanted to pull out my gun and shoot Alex Kyle between the eyes. It was a part of me that I didn’t particularly like, a part of me that I’d kept pretty well in check since getting back to Miami.

“That’s me,” I said. “Big disgrace.”

We stared at each other for a moment, and I could feel him making decisions, figuring out maybe his information was wrong. “Anyway,” he said, “whoever wants you alive has more power than the people who want you dead. And has better technology. Five times in the last year I thought we had you. Five times I had to claim a corpse.”

“It took you five dead bodies to figure this out?”

Alex shrugged again. “You’re still Michael Westen. I just figured you were hard to kill. I didn’t realize you had guardian angels.”

I looked at Alex sitting there on my Charger. I thought about all the men he’d sent to kill me who had died. Thought about the reasons behind it-pure, unadulterated greed-and felt something surge inside of me.

“Here I am,” I said. “Only person to stop you is Fiona. And you could take her out, I’m sure.”

Alex gave a slight chuckle. “Last guy I sent? Former Army Ranger. Kills on every continent. Damn near had ESP. Whoever is watching you left a note, carved into his back like scrimshaw, letting me know that they were aware of the situation and monitoring it closely and that if anyone was going to kill you, it was going to be them. So you’ll pardon me for not taking you up on your kind offer.”

“Then what are you doing here?” I said.

Alex got off my car and stretched his back, cracked his neck, ran through each knuckle on both of his hands.

“Professional courtesy,” he said. “Mr. Bonaventura decides he wants you dead, there’s nothing I can do about that. You came to him, I didn’t come to you, so the rules are different here. Strictly business, Michael, but not spy business. I want that known.”

“Right,” I said. “You’ll light me the fuck up, as I recall. You’re just not going to be the one to pull the trigger, are you?”

“I’m just a consultant. He kills you, it’s not like I end up any richer. And I don’t claim it. I don’t endorse it. But I will say that you don’t go in and threaten someone like Mr. Bonaventura and not expect recrimination. And while I don’t approve of what you’re doing to Mr. Dinino or Mr. Stefania, that’s your business.”

I could hear some hesitation in Alex’s voice. Gone was the brazen Jarhead of this afternoon and gone, too, was the confident version I found sitting next to Fiona mere minutes previous.

He was pleading for his life.

“Did you endorse killing the guy in front of my house today?”

“That wasn’t me,” he said.

“No?”

“If someone is dead near you, it’s them or it’s because of them. That’s what I’m telling you.”

Them.

“No,” Fiona said, “what you’re telling us is that you’re scared and don’t want to die. So I suggest you scurry back to your hole.”

Alex Kyle looked around himself, figuring, I’m sure, that there was a gun trained on him somewhere. Maybe there was. Maybe there was one on all of us. “Not a lot of places to hide on the open sea between here and Nassau,” he said. “You want to make sure you live another day, I’d leave Maria and Liz Ottone alone. You want to press Nicholas Dinino? Fine. Have at him. Scumbag, in my opinion. But you drag Mr. Bonaventura into this, you drag everyone you’ve met into it. And that’s forever with him.”

“I feel pretty protected,” I said. “Five for five, right?”

“It won’t always be like that,” he said.

“And if that’s the case,” I said, “you can bet that I’ll come looking for you first. And Alex? Ask those kids about the smile and the sunglasses, they’ll tell you some stories.”

“I’ll do that,” he said. He checked his watch. “Boy, it’s late. And I think we’ve both got a long day tomorrow. I don’t suppose you want to give me back my guns?”

“Good guess,” I said.

A smirk ran across Alex Kyle’s face. “Tommy the Ice Pick. The funny thing? You check out. You got wise guys who swear to your veracity. Bonaventura actually believes someone called Tommy the Ice Pick has him cornered on a potential murder rap.” He shook his head once, very slowly, and started backing away from us. A black SUV pulled into the parking lot right on cue and idled next to him. “He killed his own father and brother and didn’t get caught, and you actually have him worried.” He patted the hood of the SUV. “All else fails, you got that going for you.”

Alex Kyle got into the SUV then and pulled away, even offered a brusque wave out the window as he passed us.

“He was nice,” Fi said. “And he donated some very nice guns to our rebel cause.”

“That’s good,” I said. “But I don’t think we’ll need them.”

“Don’t be such a disgrace,” Fiona said. “We could have been killing people and improving your standing among your peers all the while. We should take up that opportunity now that we have it.”

“Next time,” I said. We got in the Charger and headed back toward Fiona’s.

My cell rang. It was Nate. I answered in one ring. Never too late to set a good example.

“You owe me big, bro,” Nate said.

“What do you have?”

“You ever hear of a country called Calabria?”

“It’s not a country,” I said. “It’s a province. In Italy. On the Ionian Sea.” I remembered I was talking to Nate and added, “It’s the part that looks like the toe of the boot.”

“Awesome,” Nate said. “We ever get on a game show together, you’ll handle world geography questions and I’ll be the guy saving lives.”