Steve Martini - Guardian of Lies

Liquida moved quickly to straighten up the last few items in the kitchen as his mind continued to nibble at the notion that the man who hired him had tried to set him up.

Of course, this was not necessarily a surprise. Liquida never trusted any of the people he worked for. After all, they were not saints, or even the distant relatives of saints. They were hiring him to kill others who had become inconvenient to them. The only saving grace was that for the most part the victims were no better than the people who hired Liquida to kill them. Of course, this was not exactly something to commend you for membership in the local Rotary Club. And it always begged the question of whether Liquida himself might be seen as an inconvenience at some point. This had happened only twice. The two wayward employers could now be found residing in the northern desert of Mexico; that is, if you knew where to dig.

But to Liquida this was no sign that he was narrow minded. He could understand if they were trying to eliminate him for reasons of business, to silence him because he knew too much or perhaps even to avoid payment. Mind you, he would kill in a Mexican minute any employer harboring such notions. Still, he could understand their motives.

But the current customer, the man in Colombia, was a different case. Liquida had good reason to dislike him. The man was arrogant, and it showed. Even though Liquida sensed that the interpreter had tried to dull the sting of insults from his master’s words, he could not conceal them. In all of his communications the employer had talked down to Liquida. He had accused him of incompetence for missing the woman at the house that night and for compounding this error by having her arrested for the murder of the man Pike. It was not Liquida’s fault that the woman had picked that night to run. And still the employer had never forgiven him, even after he had fixed the problem during the ambush of the sheriff’s bus.

He finished cleaning up and snatched the two items he had left behind on the countertop, the remote control and the woman’s camera with the photographs. Another task done for which Liquida was certain there would be no appreciation.

He’d had to turn the house upside down looking for the camera. But he had found it. Who the hell leaves a camera on a shelf in the laundry room? He had already checked the images in the camera’s view screen. The pictures were still there inside, the same ones Liquida had seen on the computer screen the night he killed the man at the photo lab in Virginia. He had done everything he was asked to do and he had done it well. And in the morning, when the woman’s mother arrived home, she would be greeted by Liquida and his carefully prepared accident. What more could the man in Colombia ask?

This man had no appreciation of the work Liquida had done. Now he had sent two of his minions to set him up. Liquida would teach him a lesson he would not soon forget. He hurried toward the front door and the open gate while there was still time.

I am still at the corner catching my breath, trying to guess the distance to the lodge from here, perhaps a mile, maybe more, when I hear the slam of the metal gate.

I sneak a look. The guy is back outside, down on one knee at the gate. On the sidewalk next to him are some items. At this distance I can’t make out what they are.

He doesn’t have a key. He is working the lock the same way Herman had, and seems to be talking to himself as he does it. I can almost hear his voice. It is as if he’s arguing with someone. He was no FBI agent, that was certain. And his chances of being a social guest diminish considerably as I watch him pick the lock on the gate to close up. I don’t know if he is more skilled than Herman, but I have to admit he is faster, which probably means that he’s had more practice.

He is finishing up, putting the pick back in a container. I start to look around for places to hide. If he walks this way, I am in trouble. There is a car parked at the curb, maybe forty feet behind me; some thin, straggly bushes; and a long-abandoned, rusted set of railroad tracks across the street.

I stand up, and when I peer around the corner again he has finished and is on his feet. He gathers the objects from the sidewalk and, just when I think I might have to run, he turns away and walks in the opposite direction, down the street and away from me. I step away from the corner, take a deep breath, and hold my chest. Harry was right. I should have stayed home.

Then it strikes me that maybe he is going after Herman. If he is, he is taking his time. Just when I think I have it knocked, I hear a car door slam and then an engine start, and before I look around the corner, the screech of tires. The beam of the headlights nearly catches me looking around the edge of the building. He is screaming up the street directly at me.

I turn and run as fast as I can for the car at the curb. I know I have no chance.

When I turn back and look, he is stopped at the corner, gunning the engine and hitting the brake, inching forward in jumps, looking the other way. I glimpse the back of his head as I dive for the gutter behind the parked car.

The few seconds as he looked the wrong way were the difference. By the time he turned to look toward me, I was already in the deep gully where the paved road dipped down to meet the high curb of the sidewalk. As I lie hiding in the shadows, looking through the slight gap between the rear tire and the curb, I see his face. He scans the sidewalk in my direction as far as he can, and then turns his eyes on the car I am hiding behind. He studies the windshield for a long moment, takes out a small flashlight, and shoots the beam toward the front of the car. I duck down as best I can, trying to make myself smaller to hide behind the rear wheel.

I can’t see him any longer, but I can see the tires of his car as they move out into the intersection and turn this way. The wheels inch forward as pieces of loose gravel pop under the weight and the friction of his tires. I can hear the muted sounds of salsa as it plays on the radio inside his car. I slide forward on my stomach under the car as his wheels roll slowly this way. He edges in close, along the side of the car.

I glance back. My feet have just passed under the rear bumper as I continue to wiggle forward. I hear the slight hum of the electric motor and whish of the glass as the driver’s side window rolls down. The brassy sound and beat of salsa spills out all over the street. The music drowns out any noise I might make as I inch forward under the car.

I know what he is doing. He is peering through the side windows with his flashlight, checking the car’s interior, making sure there is no one inside. If I could only get him to move a few blocks away and try it again, he might be greeted by the flash of nine-millimeter muzzles and the FBI. Something tells me there is a connection here if I could only figure it out.

He rolls forward a few inches. A second later the sound of the music diminishes as the window closes. If he keeps going forward and looks in his mirror, or drives to the corner and turns around, I am dead. He would see me silhouetted under the car, backlit by the overhead lights down the street.

As this thought enters my brain, he guns the engine. His rear wheels squeal. My nostrils fill with the acrid odor of burnt rubber as his car chatters sideways for half a beat before it shoots back down the street in reverse. He throws the rear end into the opening at Katia’s street and in a single fluid motion makes a three-point turn and speeds off in the other direction. I watch as his brake lights flare at the next intersection. He slows for a few seconds and looks in both directions, down to the right toward the Sportsmens Lodge, and up to the left toward the hospital.