Chuck Hogan - Devils in Exile

She stared at him in such a way that he wasn’t sure she’d heard a word he’d said.

“Okay?” he said.

“Did you take money from someone?”

“What? No.”

“My dad, I didn’t tell you this, I don’t tell anyone, but he took some money from some clients, there was a scandal. He went to jail, I mean prison, for almost a year... and we had to move. But he paid it all back, and so I know how it is to fall behind sometimes and maybe get desperate...”

“Jesus — no, it’s nothing like that. I just... I just want to tie up all our loose ends.”

She stared, openmouthed. “God, that’s an ugly phrase.”

“I’m sorry.”

He had unpacked the contents of her desk with an eye out for anything linking him to her. His number was still in her phone, but he was going to dump that mobile. And with the bandits disbanding, there soon would be nothing to trace.

She stared at him, darkening, actively trying to read his mind. “Is it your boss’s girlfriend?”

Maven was stunned. He thought about lying, then blurted out, “Yes.”

“What?” She was more stunned than he had been. “What do you mean, yes ? What the hell does that mean?”

“You just said—”

“I wasn’t serious . Oh my God...”

And on it went for another hour, Samara vacillating between sadness and anger, between self-examination and self-righteousness, the argument running its course until it ended as only it could, with her ordering him to get out.

He lingered at the stoop outside, letting the night air get at him. Knowing he had acted in her own best interest didn’t stop him from feeling like a shit. But if this was the worst of it, then he would be lucky.

They watched the Dr. Who guy, Curt Bellson, his comings and goings. They listened to calls he made and received. The usual drill, but executed with more care this time. A bit more respect for the process.

They staked out his South End condo. They double-tailed his Saab 9–3 convertible all around town, keeping an eye out for other tails: bounty hunters, or DEA. They even played “flat tire” outside a rambling old farmhouse in the rural suburb of Easton, surrounded by acres of cranberry bog, where the deal was set to go down.

Things fell into place quickly as Bellson moved up the timetable. This busy Boston dermatologist was on the verge of financial ruin, needing the proceeds from this deal to pay off partners in a real estate venture that had gone bust in the recession.

Maven focused on the work, pouring all his extra energy into hating this guy. Taking him down was going to be a pleasure.

The windows of the corner office overlooked Government Center and Downtown Crossing. Lora Jeffers, the special agent in charge, came around from her desk and gave his hand a good shake, called him Marcus. Lash knew what was coming. She sat down and closed her laptop to see him better.

She started by listing his procedural lapses. Never registering his confidential source with the DEA. Using an informant with whom he had a personal connection. No Form 356 payment authorizations.

“I never paid him a cent,” said Lash. “He never asked, until this. Yes, we had a personal connection. He owed me his life.”

“No Form 512, the CS Establishment Report? No prints on file?”

“I knew who he was.”

“That’s not the point, Marcus, and you know it. № 473 Cooperation Agreement? Not one DEA-6 report? Nothing memorializing any of your contacts with him?”

“No paper whatsoever. He was too highly placed to go on the registry.”

“Not so far as the DEA is concerned. Not so far as I am concerned.” She placed her palm flat on top of her desk. “We use interdiction and eradication, Marcus. Title Three intercepts, surveillance...”

Lash tuned her out, looking over at the M. C. Escher prints on her wall. The hand drawing the hand; the stairs rising up and leading down at the same time.

When he came back, she was telling him, “You’ve got plenty of years in, enough to know the consequences. Nothing will happen officially until things settle. When it is to be done, it will be done quietly, out of respect for you. You’ll just have to dangle until events run their course.”

“You’re shutting it down. Just say it. The machine needs to run the way it’s always run. Someone will come in with orders to drive it into the ground until it can be called a failure and taken apart for good. Windfall is kaput.”

“Marcus, I do believe we have a case here where the old ways, the accepted ways, the proven ways, bear out. You lost a very valuable informant, and we have three agents in the hospital. You should count yourself lucky they will all survive.”

“What went wrong at the Black Falcon terminal had nothing to do with tradecraft. We walked into an ambush. That Jamaican wasn’t waiting for us. He wasn’t looking for cops to shoot. He was lying in wait for these Sugar Bandits who’ve been raising hell all over town.”

“These so-called Sugar Bandits are as much myth as they are substance. There is a turf battle going on—”

“If you’re going to make me eat crow here, then you’re going to listen to me talk with my mouth full. What I am saying is that there are big changes afoot. A sea change coming to the local scene. It is fully within your power to smack me down, but Windfall or no Windfall, something has to be done out there.”

Jeffers was just waiting for him to finish. “Be that as it may—”

“Oh, fucking Christ. Can I go?”

“What did you say?”

“I’ve taken my spanking. Am I excused?”

She fixed her eyes on him a moment, then reopened her laptop. “You are.”

Lash pulled up to the gated driveway on Brush Hill road in Milton and turned off his car. He scaled the stone wall and dropped down onto the other side, pulling out his badge in anticipation, heading straight up the driveway of crunchy gray stones.

Two gunmen came out of the trees near the circular arrival court at the head of the driveway. They carried AKs and wore inexpensive dark suits. The best-dressed gunmen in all of Milton, Massachusetts.

“I’m DEA, motherfuckers,” said Lash. “I’m here to talk to Crassion.”

“This is a private residence,” said one.

Lash showed them the badge again. “Shoot me or get the fuck out of my way.”

The house was a Victorian with a Boston flavor, three gables with deeply overhanging eaves, just short of a BBC-miniseries mansion. Lash counted five chimneys. The carriage house to the right was the size of a normal suburban residence, with room for more than four vehicles and living quarters above. Gardens and footpaths began behind.

The arched front door was unlocked, and he let himself into the foyer, under armed escort, getting angrier by the minute. Busting up one of the gunmen was a temptation, but it wouldn’t make him feel any better in the long run. He kept himself on simmer instead. Tricky’s death weighed heavily on him.

“Whatever happened to protocol, Agent Lash?”

John Crassion, a portly gent in his sixties, entered from the living room to the left, wearing a merlot-colored robe and slippers, a thin newspaper tucked beneath his arm. His gruff voice was the only indication of the South Boston boy he’d tried so desperately to leave behind.

Lash said, “Tell these two boys to go play.”

Crassion nodded to his men, and they stepped back. “At least let them frisk you.”

Lash shook his head. Not today.

Crassion shrugged. “This is criminal trespass anyway, so any recording you might be making, legally it would be about as admissible as a drawing of a gun. In here.” He pointed at his library with the newspaper.