Derek Haas - Dark men

A new hallway, this one with a sign above a door at the end of it that reads “exit,” but might as well say “freedom.” I’m tired, sore, a little dizzy if I took the time to admit it, but all of that is just vague wisps at the back of my brain as I glide through the corridor and hit the door in full stride.

It slams open and slaps the outside wall with a bang and I’m surprised to find it overcast outside, like the beginning of a summer storm. It might be dawn, it might be dusk, impossible to tell.

Two cars are parked in an otherwise empty lot, a pair of foreign sedans and it won’t take me long to jump one, get the hell out of here, and figure out where the fuck I am before I make my next move.

Just as I approach the driver’s door of the black one, a familiar voice shouts from the doorway, jolting me as abruptly as if that guard’s stun-gun had sent a thousand volts into my body.

“Columbus! Wait!”

I can’t believe the voice I hear. I don’t even have to turn around to know who it is. I start to shake my head, my hand poised inches from the sedan’s door handle.

“Hold up just a second, now,” he calls out.

I turn, an about-face, and a wave of nausea suddenly springs up and threatens to cloud my vision. The first drops of rain prick my head, cold.

“Archie?”

It comes out more of a question than a statement, like he might disappear, a mirage.

“First thing I gotta say before you hit me with that silver tray, Columbus. I wasn’t part of this. Not directly.”

He doesn’t disappear. The rain starts to fall harder but he’s really there, wet but not washing away.

“What the hell’s going on, Archie?” In my mind I say this calmly, but I can hear it come out with a sharp edge.

“Well, I can answer that. I will, too. But what say you come back inside and we talk about it out of this mess.”

“What’d they do to you, Archie?”

“Come inside, Columbus.”

“If you think I’m walking back inside that warehouse, you’ve forgotten everything you know about me.”

He nods at that as the rain accumulates in his close-cropped afro. “You gonna make me talk about this in the rain, aint’cha? Goddam.”

He steps away from the warehouse door and approaches as cautiously as a bird looking for breadcrumbs under an occupied park bench.

“Second thing I gotta say is I didn’t know.”

“What didn’t you know?”

“Can we at least sit in that car to do this?”

“Only if we drive it away from here.”

“Sold.”

I ready my elbow to smash in the sedan’s window. “Wait!”

He holds up a set of keys. “That’s my rental.”

“Then you drive.”

“As long as you don’t kill me before I tell you what for.”

“Depends on what your answers are, Archie.” I slide into the passenger seat and wait for the car to come to life. The rain patters the windshield like gunfire.

A back booth at Dunkin Donuts admits us a place to talk and eat, two of Archie’s favorite pastimes.

“It all played out how you know it. Some men put hands on me in the middle of the night. I put up a fight and they cracked me till I was flat. I didn’t know it was Spilatro or the Agency or none of that. No one told me this was coming. You gotta believe that. I meant what I said when I said I’d help you stay gone.”

Archie doesn’t smile as much as he used to. That was his trademark, flashing his teeth, making you feel comfortable, even when you thought maybe he was trying to pull one over on you. Maybe after his sister died, he couldn’t bring himself to put on that show anymore. Or maybe this business with the government shook him up.

“How long have you been working for Uncle Sam?”

“Not working for. Working with. There’s a continent of difference between those two prepositions.”

He bites into a cinnamon twist, but doesn’t look down, his eyes stoic.

“Any fence worth a whit does some Agency shit time to time. They outsource the domestic bloodshed. It’s their culture. They use their talent on foreign soil, but back home? They contract out the wetwork, same as everyone. You’ve done a job or two for them over the years, guaranteed.”

“I don’t care.”

He holds up his palms defensively, like he wants me to let him finish. He hasn’t dropped his hands below the table since we arrived.

“I know you don’t, Columbus. You a Silver Bear and you don’t look to know who hired you. A kill’s a kill and it’s all about the hunt. I get that. I’m just trying to put some background on this thing we’re in.”

He coughs into his fist, like he’s still sorting out his thoughts. “Some people in the government found out you was the one what killed that senator…”

“Congressman.”

“Politician. Presidential candidate. Abe Mann. Whatever. We on the same page.”

“How’d they know it was me?”

“They got a name and that’s all they got. Contractor named Columbus did it. There are only a few like you in the whole damn world, so the field was narrow. Who knows how the whisper became a fact, but they knew, and when they found out it was you, they found out about me.”

The cinnamon twist is gone and after he licks the sugar crystals off his fingers, he’s on to an old-fashioned.

“They knew you’d given up the game, and they hired Spilatro to bring you back. He’s the cat who came up with the kidnap plan, the ransom note, the bread crumb trail that would bring you out of hiding.”

“So these men could have revenge on me for killing their candidate, their puppet.”

Archie sets down his donut. “Not exactly.”

I wait for more.

“They want you to work for them.”

I shake my head, my mouth twisted in a frown. “Do I look like I have a bump on my head, Archie? Why would I buy that?”

“Because it’s the truth. They saw the job you pulled in Los Angeles and wanted to know the man who could execute like that and walk away clean. They got beat by you, and dark men like them do one of two things when they get beat. They either fix the problem by plugging it up, or they recruit the son-of-a-bitch over to their side. Except with you, they figured best to do both.”

I don’t think my head has stopped shaking.

Archie continues, undaunted, “They went to their best hitter inside the company and said, ‘here’s your assignment. You find this Columbus and you kill him.’ But what they were really saying was ‘let the best man win.’”

“A test?”

“Something like that. Competition’s a better word. They want to run a stable with the best horses. And you just proved again you’re the best in the game.”

“And you played along?”

“After the beatdown they put on me, they drove me to what they call a ‘secure location.’ Then the real players showed up and told me the what-all. They kept me fed, let me watch TV, but they made it clear they wasn’t fucking around. Wanted to keep me alive and kicking so I could broker a deal if you bested Spilatro. And so here we are.”

“And Smoke is dead.”

His eyes cloud over. “Yeah. It’s a fuckin’ shame Spilatro did him like that. Smoke was good people.”

I sit back and fold my arms. “Call ’em over here.”

Archie gets that look on his face I’ve seen before, the one that says he forgot who he was dealing with. He wipes his fingers carefully with a napkin, then leans back and lets loose a long sigh. Finally, he cranes his neck and nods at the corner booth.

Two men wearing charcoal suits rise from the booth as they try unsuccessfully to keep their faces blank.

Archie slides around next to me, and they sit opposite.

“And the third. Call him over.”

The shorter of the two men-the one with bushy, black eyebrows that seem too large for his face-calls out to a third suited man perched at the counter. “Grayson, you’re made.”