Richard Greener - The Knowland Retribution

“Got a match?” he said to the man, who now stood squarely on the icy spot. He was clearly startled by Walter’s unexpected action. For just an instant the man seemed paralyzed. Then his feet moved, but all he could manage was an uncertain slip.

Walter lunged and grabbed him. He spun him around and slammed him face-first against the metal service door. He ripped the man’s coat off from behind and seemed to jam his hand into the man’s ass.

“You know what you’re feeling?” Walter demanded. The man shook his head nervously.

“No,” he said, the word barely escaping his mouth.

“Who are you?” demanded Walter. The man did not respond. “What you’re feeling is the barrel of a small twenty-two caliber pistol. If you don’t answer my questions, quickly and truthfully, I’m going to shoot you. Do you know what that means?” This time Walter didn’t wait for an answer. “It means a twenty-two magnum cartridge will literally cut you a new asshole. It probably won’t kill you. But the damage it does to your colon and your intestines will take years to fix. Maybe decades. You’ll shit in a bag until you’re an old man, and every time you so much as pass gas you’ll think of me and regret whatever impulse you’re feeling now to withhold information. Have I made myself clear?” Walter reached into the man’s coat pocket and removed a pistol. He ran his hand across the man’s chest and took a second gun from his shoulder holster. “You hear me, asshole!”

“Yes,” the man said. Isobel could taste the fear in his voice. She too was imagining the lifetime of pain and discomfort that awaited the wrong decision.

“Who are you?” Walter asked. He pushed harder into the man’s rectum.

“Jack Allen,” the man said.

“And?” said Walter, pushing even harder.

“I’m a New York City police detective.”

Isobel was shocked, certain they had stumbled into something that meant trouble for both of them. Holding a gun to the asshole of an NYPD detective…

“Name,” Walter commanded. This time he took the man’s wallet and flipped it open. The badge was there and the ID card. “You want me to start counting? Because when I get to one your ass is on fire.”

“Allen. Jack Allen. I already told you.” There was panic in the man’s voice. Isobel could feel how desperate he was to save himself.

“You’re not on the job, goddamn it! Your ID is old, shitface. You’re retired. Name who you work for, fuckhead!” said Walter.

“I’m an NYPD detective,” said the man claiming to be Jack Allen.

“Fuck you, detective!” Walter growled in his ear. “I don’t hear another name I shoot.”

“No!” the man cried out. “Don’t shoot me! I work for a man named Robert Wilkes. I really do. Wilkes hired me.”

“To do what? Follow me?”

“No, no. I don’t have any idea who you are, man. I’m following her.”

A chill ran through Isobel’s body, not unlike what she felt talking to Leonard Martin. She remembered. Leonard said she was being watched.

“Her?” Walter screamed. “Why? Hurry up now, Jack.”

“Wilkes thought she would lead me to Leonard Martin.”

“You fucking sonofabitch!” Isobel kicked him just below his knee. Allen stumbled, but Walter held him up, pushing the pistol as deep into his asshole as he could. He felt the man’s pants tear.

“Then what?” Walter asked in voice more at ease than anything he’d said before. “Then what, Jack?”

“Nothing. Just go back and tell Wilkes where he’s at.”

“You won’t hear the sound of this gun, you know that? When I pull the trigger you’ll feel it like a hot poker ramming up your ass into your gut.” The man, Jack Allen or whatever his name was, groaned and slumped to the ground. Urine was flowing on the sidewalk, steaming in the cold winter air as it inched its way to the curb. Walter had not shot him.

“You’re out of business, Jack. Tell that to Wilkes and whoever he works for. I ever see you again, you’re a dead man, got it?” Jack Allen didn’t say anything. He was pissing and sobbing at the same time. Walter threw the wallet down on the street but kept the badge, the ID, and the guns.

“Come on,” he said to Isobel. “Let’s go.”

“Sure,” she said, but Isobel Gitlin wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

New York

The smell of fresh coffee woke Isobel. The bedroom drapes were open and a brilliant morning flooded in through the glass. The city that never sleeps at least naps, and now its nap was over. It was wide awake once more. Horns blared. Traffic inched forward on the streets below. Darting through the bare limbs of trees in snowy Central Park, an occasional jogger could be seen. The sun was bright in a cloudless sky, although the air looked cold to her. Steam heat whistled from the pipes in Walter’s suite. He always asked for accommodations on the side of the hotel that had not been renovated. He told her that the first time, when she met him in the restaurant. He liked his hotels old. He preferred steam heat over hot air. She heard him on the phone in the living room where the coffee awaited, but she was unable to make out what he was saying. Isobel stretched and yawned. The sex had been fantastic, and the pendant he’d put around her neck when they were both naked was beautiful. Intrigue and danger, mixed with the sweat of their bodies, had driven them to furious heights. “Wartime sex must really be something,” Isobel thought. Violence, she already knew, went with sex like brandy with coffee. It made the moment more intense and the aftermath sweeter. She bent down and picked up the pillow on Walter’s side of the bed. Holding it close against her face, she inhaled, smiled, and tossed it back on the sheets. Then she headed for the shower.

“Yes,” said Tom Maloney, answering his cell phone on the first ring. His voice was cold with a touch of anger poorly hidden. Walter had no sympathy for the difficulties of Tom Maloney’s existence. The New York Times was on Maloney’s ass. They continued to talk about him on cable TV, and the liberal press wrote piece after piece, coming this close to saying that he and his gang of co-conspirators deserved to be shot. Leonard Martin, already regarded as America’s most effective and efficient multiple killer since The Terminator, wanted him dead. Maloney’s charmed life had turned to pure shit, but Walter couldn’t care less. He was pissed about a retired NYPD cop and Robert Wilkes, whoever he was. There was no “hello” in his manner or his voice.

“Wilkes,” said Walter. “Robert Wilkes.”

“Sherman? Is that you?”

“Tell me about Wilkes, Tom.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking-”

“If I hang up, Tom, you’ll never hear from me again.” There was only silence on the other end of the line. “Tell me about Wilkes.”

“I don’t understand,” Maloney said. “How do you know about Wilkes? Does Wilkes know about you?” He thought, “What have I gotten myself into.” Could it be that people like Walter Sherman and the FBI Special Agent Wilkes knew each other, traveled in the same circles like business associates or something? Could there be a world out there he knew nothing of? One that posed a new danger to him? Maloney hadn’t said a word to Wilkes about Walter Sherman, and he certainly didn’t tell Walter about hiring Wilkes first. Tom Maloney was, however, quick on his feet. “Nathan made a mistake in judgment, Walter. I didn’t think you needed to know, and that was a mistake I made. I see that now and I’m sorry. But I still don’t understand-”

“Isobel Gitlin,” said Walter. “Just what the hell is that all about?”

“Mother of God!” Maloney thought, “that bitch,” and he almost said as much out loud. “She’s a reporter with-”